Using imported images in Ultrafractal

When I set this blog up I was asked about how I created the images for it. I promised that I would explain it. This is me trying to follow up with that commitment. This isn't meant to be a step by step tutorial. It's more of a high level view of what I do. I am assuming that you know how to use an image editor like Photoshop and you can use Ultrafractal.

There are 2 image importing tools, that I know of, that that will create an Ultrafractal coloring formula out of images. They are Bring it in and Sprite. I'll focus on Bring it in.

Prepare the image

The first thing that you have to do is to come up with an image and get it ready to be imported. I snapped this picture while shooting butterflies (with my camera) at an exhibit at the Pacific Science Center.



I like to use imported images the same way that I use trap shapes. To create a "trap shape" I needed to pull the flower out of its original background and place it into a transparent background. I did that by selecting the area that I wanted to keep and then doing a copy-paste of that area into a new image that had a transparent background.

The trick is to do the selection from the original image. In this case it was easy to use the Photoshop magic wand tool to pick the red. It grabbed everything but the dark center. I used the lasso tool to add the dark center to the selection. Most of the time it is not that easy. Usually extra chunks of the image are copied and pasted in to the new image and need to be erased.

Prior to the copy and paste I usually like to feather the selection by a few pixels to smooth out the edges.

Then copy the selection and paste it into a new image that has a transparent background...

Save the image in a format that will preserve the transparent background, like as a PNG.

The size of the imported image is an important consideration. If you are going to render a large fractal for printing, the imported image can start to pixelate. I like to import the largest image that I can, keeping in mind that each pixel is mapped into an array in the UF coloring formula. This sucks up a tremendous amount of computer memory while using the formula in UF and slows down the system response time.

Bring it in has the advantage of allowing you to import larger images. I haven't used Sprite in a long time but it didn't seem to handle large images very well.

Create the Ultrafractal UCL

You have your PNG image and it's time to fire up Bring it in...


Make sure that the new UCL is created in your My Formulas folder. Give the new UCL a name like "hib.ucl". This is like creating a folder like "dmj". The Name is the name of the formula inside of the UCL. Be sure to select one of the two V3 templates. In fact, before closing Bring it in, create a second formula and place it in the same UCL by changing the template to the other V3 template and changing the Name.

Use the UCL in Ultrafractal

Now it's time to fire up UF and start using your new UCL


You went through a lot of effort to create an image with a transparent background so that you could take advantage of that transparency in your fractal image. The two V3 formulas have different approaches to create the transparency. Formulas created from the Standard-NonDirect-V3 template need the base color to be transparent (shown above) as well as an area of the gradient. Formulas created from the Standard-V3 template only needs the base color to be transparent.

Be sure to set the "Color by..." parameter to "Last Z" or "First Z"

You might need to adjust the "Trap Alpha Threshold" parameter

I like the formulas created by Standard-NonDirect-V3 template. It somehow allows you to use the gradient to change the color of the imported image. The gradient is linked to the image trap through the "Choose Index By?" parameter.

Mark put some very handy image filters into the formulas. They're worth playing with.

It goes without saying that you should adjust the size and rotation of the image trap so that it looks good.

Also take advantage of the "Start Iteration" and "Skip some Iterations" to turn off some of the traps.

Feel free to comment or ask questions here or in the forum

Fractal Background

Sometimes it seems that fractals are under utilized as backgrounds. In my experience, some fractals are simply not strong enough to stand on their own, yet they make excellent backgrounds / desktop wallpaper mainly because they are not too demanding.

Here's an example:



Perhaps the key here is to recognize those "undemanding" fractals and take what many would consider a weakness and turn it into a strength.

Hello Everyone

Hi Keith and Everyone,

Thanks, Keith, for the opportunity to join your very interesting blog! I'm looking forward to contributing from the point of view of a still-somewhat-novice fractal enthusiast, and I hope others will feel free to join in with comments, suggestions, and opinions on anything I might venture to say here.

Cheers,
Cornelia

Perspective

In the last 2 years I have submitted fractal art to the Puyallup Fair fine arts show. The Puyallup Fair is one of the biggest fairs on the west coast. This year 1,182,937 people attended it. I regret to say that I did not submit anything to the fine arts show this year. I was traveling on business around the time that submissions were due, so it didn't happen.

This image won an honorable mention last year and was sold

Anyway, I went to the fair this year and walked through the fine arts gallery. The entry categories in the show were oil, pencil, ink, mixed medium, watercolor, sculpture, a few other traditional mediums, and computer art. I wish that I could remember the exact numbers but I do remember that there were a little over 600 accepted entries and 18 of those were in the computer category. Computer art was about 3% of the total that was accepted.

I might have missed something, but when I walked through the gallery hunting down the computer art, the only fractal based art that I could find were 2 pieces in the judges section (yes, the judges have a section in the gallery to display and offer for sale 2 pieces of their own art). Let's say that I did miss an obscure fractal and assume that there was one in the gallery, aside from the judges. That's about 2 tenths of 1% of the total art in the gallery. This is typical of the previous years. Along with my 2 submissions, there was usually only 1 or 2 other pieces of fractal based art in the gallery.

Our online world leads us to believe that "fractal art" should be a household phrase. In places like DeviantArt we have hundreds of fractal loving contacts from all over the world, but I wonder, where do we fit in the big picture of the art world? It looks like the current version of Apophysis is heading for another 15,000 downloads. That seems like a lot, but in the big picture, is it really a lot? Judging from what I saw in the fair, it isn't.

From my perspective, this means that fractal artists are a tiny spec on the world of art. I don't mean that to be a positive or a negative. It is what it is. For me this means that any public display of fractal art is a big deal and we should take advantage these displays as much as we possibly can.

But then again, maybe not. This is digital art after all. I haven't printed a single photo since buying my digital SLR. Maybe digital art will always be relegated to viewing on the computer screen. Maybe we don't fit in a traditional public display. There are people who do display their digital art on big LCD screens. I don't know how I feel about that.

Maybe, with perspective, none of this matters :-)

What is your perspective on this?

Keith

Intricate Variation

Keith was kind enough to allow me to contribute to this blog, so here goes.

One of the most powerful things about fractal software is that it allows the artist to create varied and interesting images that are still related. In this way, digital artists, can develop their own, often recognizable style.

Here's an example. A few months back, many of us over at the Fracfan Forum were experimenting with, and creating "disc / cog" fractals.



They're intricate and reasonably attractive, but after a while they all start to look very similar.

However, by playing with the variations offered in Apophysis, its possible to come up with images that are quite interesting.

With a bit of effort, imagination and *some* post processing, it was possible to create:

A Wall (or two)



A Shell



A Pretzel



and

A "Clock Flower"



It will be interesting to see what other images in this style can be coaxed from the program in the coming months, especially given the new "3D Hack".

All the images in the post are available as desktop wallpaper, just click on them to get to the associated flickr page and choose the original version option at the top of the screen. These images will be posted over at my personal blog in due course.

Reality changes everything

I was introduced to the online community through the Ultrafractal mailing list. I made a lot of friends from that list. Then I started posting things on Renderosity and made more friends. Even after interacting with these people for years, they were still strangers. I really didn't know them.

A few years ago I had the chance to met some of these people face to face. It was weird. The people weren't weird (well, maybe a little ;-)), but it was weird because they were different from my online perception of them. I realized then that these people had lives - that they had families, jobs, struggles in life and interests that were beyond fractal art.

It was an enriching experience to meet these people. In every case I was left with more respect and affection for them. I highly recommend meeting other fractal artists. We are a unique bunch and it is so cool to talk to someone who actually understands the same language that you do. The Internet is so cold and impersonal. There is nothing like reality.

Displaying your art in the real world is also enlightening. Places like Renderosity and DeviantArt can cause one to be a little self inflated, but when you are watching a real person looking at your art, reality sets in in a hurry.

While I appreciate the positive reinforcement that I get online and the friends that I have here, I value reality more.

-Keith