Ultra Fractal’s parser is fast: before they are executed the formulas are compiled to Pentium assembler code. Contrary to other programs, it has very few built-in fractal types: most fractal types are implemented as formulas that are compiled on-the-fly. It runs under Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP and it produces true-color images. Ultra Fractal 3 is a powerful shareware program created by Frederik Slijkerman, whom was helped by suggestions made by Damien Jones. The Windows version, named Winfract, is quite old and limited. On the server Spanky maintained by Noel GiffinĪ Unix port named Xfractint is available from the same page. The latest version 20.0 is dated 1999 and can be found, together with invaluable information, at the It is still supported by many artists (even if they also use more recent programs) because thousands of formulas have been published and are available, and because the syntax to write these formulas is a quasi standard. Until recently Fractint was the most widely used program, and for many years, almost all fractal art was developed with it. Nevertheless, after a few times of use, this interface becomes very easy to use. However, Fractint has some limitations: it is a DOS program with an outdated interface and it uses only the 256 color mode. All the classic, and many more modern features of fractal rendering were introduced in the successive versions of this program. Particularly, it has a fast parser which allows very complex formulas, especially when conditional tests were added to its capabilities. At present, the development is under the responsibility of Tim Wegner.įractint has been the leader in fractal creation for a long time, and it incorporates a great number of powerful and extensive options which have largely inspired more recent programs. It is a collective work of many contributors which are known as the Stone Soup Group. In the usual range of zooming, Fractint uses double-precision variables.įractint is a freeware. But this mode is very slow because it does not use the coprocessor and it is not compatible with all types of fractals. Its name originated from the fact that it emulated floating point math, which was slow at that time (many computers did not have coprocessors) by a fast-integer emulation, together with a floating-point algorithm to support coprocessors (but for a long time the default mode was the integer one).įractint has an invaluable deep-zooming capability which overcomes the limitations of the coprocessor double-precision mode (which “limits” the zoom to approximately 10 15 times) by using an arbitrary-precision algorithm. It appeared in 1988 under the name FRACT386, and version 6 was renamed FRACTINT in February 1989. Fractint was the first great fractal program.
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