Color Schemes and Color Palettes

The Color Scheme panel allows the mixing of different standard coloring schemes for fractal images. Since this is a general iterative system renderer we tried to stick with schemes that are more universal. For example, the triangle inequality scheme relies heavily on the structure of the Mandelbrot set, so we excluded it. In addition, since the general evaluation of expressions are lengthier than hard coded formulas we added into the rendering process all calculations needed for each color scheme so that re-rendering was not necessary if a color scheme option was changed, all that is needed is the much faster recoloring. For this reason we did not include some scheme types that would necessitate a re-rendering. Storing all of this extra information can be taxing on the system memory so there is a rendering option to store a minimum amount of data and an option to store all the data. If you store all of the data then you can move between color schemes and change options in the color scheme without the need to re-render the image. If you chose to store a minimum amount of data then the program will look for the current color scheme and generate the needed data just for that scheme. So if you change options in that scheme the system will not re-render the image but if you change color schemes the program may need to re-render the image. Using the storage of all data makes the recoloring faster but uses a large amount of memory and using minimum data storage makes the rendering process a little faster and uses less memory but requires re-rendering on color scheme changes. It is probably best to store all data (the default setting) unless your machine runs out of memory on large images.


There are two portions of the fractal image, the inside and the outside. The inside consists of all the points that have made it through all iterations, up to the maximum, and did not hit the bailout condition. The outside is the set of all points that hit the bailout condition before the maximum iteration was reached. The schemes that are used in graphing the final image are the ones currently selected on the inside and the outside tabs. So if the solid color is selected for the inside and distance is selected for the outside, then the image will use the distance algorithms for the outside points and the solid color for the inside points.

Most coloring schemes have their own independent color palettes. The palette is a continuous linear gradient from one color to another. The anchor colors can be added, deleted, or moved. In addition, there are options to copy, paste, save, and open color palettes. Each palette also has the option to repeat the palette in the color scheme and to add an offset to the palette that will begin the color scheme at a different point and cycle the beginning colors around to the end. The other options are dependent on the scheme used. We will discuss the palette options here and then the specific scheme options on their respective pages.

The palette contains a base color and a set of anchor colors. The base color is the one that both starts and ends the gradient. You can change this color by either holding down the shift key and clicking on the palette display or by right-clicking the palette display and selecting to edit the base color from the pop-up menu.

The anchor colors are shown as vertical lines with circular centers inside the palette display. To add an anchor color, click on the palette display but not on one of the current anchor colors. As with editing the base color, a color selector will appear allowing you to select a color for the anchor. To remove an anchor color, hold down the control key and click in the center of the circle of the anchor to remove. You can also move the anchor by a click-and-drag for the anchor color circle.

A right-click on the palette display will bring up a pop-up menu allowing copy and paste options and open and save options for the palettes as well as a palette reset option.

The coloring schemes here are a little different than ones that are normally found in fractal programs. Many fractal programs have only iteration based color schemes and use a discrete coloring algorithm that assigns a color to an escape iteration. Some other programs, that have multiple coloring schemes, have continuous systems like the one built into this program. The coloring scheme here is normalized to a 0-1 scale and the specific schemes select colors by converting the mathematical information to this 0-1 scale and then the color is selected. This has a tendency to smooth out colors and sometimes stretch them out too far and produce an image that does not use very much of the palette. In this case, you can choose to repeat the palette, which will place several of these schemes into the 0-1 normalized scale. The offset is similar, as you move the slider, the palette's starting point will be shifted down the palette. When the offset is set to the far right, the palette will start with the left base color and when the offset slider is at the far left the palette will start at the right base color, that is, move through the palette one time.