Ogless Fractal Explorer Help

Ogless has a wide range of images, all generated by custom fractal algorithms you will find nowhere else. The fractal explorer lets you move around the fractal landscape quickly and easily without installing any software. Here's a help guide to the extensive options available for exploring a fractal. If you can't find an answer to your query please use the contact form to reach me.

Toolbar

The toolbar is displayed on the left-hand side of the explorer.

Go to the home page of Ogless web site. Exits the exploration without saving changes.

Shows a range of color palettes to choose to color the fractal. These appear on the right-hand side of the screen. To select a palette just click on the banded image that shows the range of colors available in that palette. Click at the top of the list of palettes or on the Color palette button again to close the palette. Your choice of palette is remembered when you save your fractal so it will appear as you last saw it. If you have a keyboard you can press the 'c' key to move to the next color palette.

Often you explore an area in the fractal that looked promising but in the end decide a previous area looked better. Ogless remembers all the places you previously explored and you can go back to them by pressing this toolbar button. It's just like an undo operation. It remembers every setting and every change so you can easily go back to where you were. This memory is lost when you exit Ogless explorer.

Zooms out by one step. It you have a keyboard you can use Page Down to zoom out and/or if you have a mouse you can use the mouse wheel.

Zooms in by one step keeping the same central portion visible - magnifying what it is there. It you have a keyboard you can use Page Up to zoom in and/or if you have a mouse you can use the mouse wheel. By the nature of fractals most areas have zones that provide an infinite depth of detail no matter how far in you zoom. However in the real world Ogless limited by the floating point number representation. You can zoom in from a scale of 1 to a minute 10^-13 that's like going down from a foot to below the diameter of an atom.

Zooms right out to the top level view of the algorithm. Most fractal algorithms have no further structure when x or y are outside the range -2.0 to 2.0. This command is useful to find another completely different area to explore to the one you are currently looking at. If you want to experiment with the parameters this is a good way to find a brand new interesting area. Change the parameters by quite a bit and then zoom in on areas with interesting structure from the top level. Keyboard shortcut 't'.

Allows you to save your exploration so you can come back to it any time you like. Because Ogless fractals run in your browser they can and do not make any changes to your device. So to save the place you are currently exploring you need to save it as a web URL - you may want to save as a bookmark. All the information is stored in the web address, if you send it to someone they can see the same image (without sending an image!)

Change algorithm and options

Changes parameters. What makes Ogless's fractal algorithms unique is that we have taken the basic Mandelbrot algorithm and tweaked them. Each algorithm behaves differently according to the values of P, Q and R parameters. Generally though P gets boring when close to 0.0 and Q boring when close to 2.0. With X, Y, P, Q, and R parameters to vary as you like there are an infinite number of effects to explore!

Exit the current fractal exploration without saving and go back to selecting another fractal from the gallery to explore.

Display this hopefully helpful page of information

Keyboard

If you have a keyboard you can control the exploration simply and easily. If you press an unrecgonised key or the command cannot be carried out a 'beep' will be sounded.

For the arrow key move commands you can change the amount of movement, press CTRL key at same time for a small move, press SHIFT key at same time for a larger move.

t Zooms right out to the outermost level. The 'Top' image of the whole fractal space available

Back Backspace undoes the last move/zoom or other change. The previous image is recalculated and displayed.

← Move the displayed area to the left.

→Move the displayed area to the right.

↑ Move the displayed area up.

↓ Move the displayed area down.

Page up Zoom in one step. Same as the toolbar 'zoom in' button.

Page down Zoom out one step. Same as the toolbar 'zoom out' button.

c C Cycle to the next display palette and redisplay. Pressing SHIFT at the same time cycles through the palettes the other way.

s Show the 'save' screen.

x Exit this exploration and go back to the 'select fractal' screen.

Changing configuration parameters

As well as moving around and zooming in, you can use the keyboard to quickly change the parameters that control the 'look' of the fractal. Now sometimes a step change will result in a large change and at other times no apparent change at all. You need to adjust the size of the step size change appropriately but there is no general rule for this. If the step change is too big you can use the 'backspace' undo command to restore the display and then adjust the parameter step change or the direction of change to explore the new fractal landscape.

p Select the parameter 'P' as the parameter being changed.

q Select the parameter 'Q' as the parameter being changed.

r Select the parameter 'R' as the parameter being changed.

i Increases the step size for configuration parameter change by a factor of ten.

j Increases the selected parameter value by one step.

k Decreases the selected parameter value by one step.

m Decreases the step size for configuration parameter change by a factor of ten.

NOTE: If you are using a configuration screen then these keyboard commands are not available.

Using the mouse and gestures

You can use the mouse to explore the fractal.

To zoom in to particular area just click on it. The selected point will be at the center of the new fractal.

To select a particular area to explore, move the mouse pointer to one corner of it then with the left mous buttonb clicked drag to the opposite corner. The area is highlighted as a box, when you release the mouse button the area you selected will be recalculated as the new fractal display.

You can use the 'navigator' arrows to move around. Just click on the arrow to go up, down, left or right. Note that you can hide the navigator on the algorithm select screen.

The mouse wheel can be used to zoom in and out at the current center point of the display.

We have added support for gestures on mobile phones, but these not work as expected on all phones - it's a current limitation of Javascript.