Winfeed for Windows 95/98/ME/2K/XP/Vista (422K) (23 Mar 07)
Click the above link to download the program.
Winfeed is a fractal exploration program. It allows the user to explore functional iteration, including Mandelbrot and Julia sets, ferns and snowflakes, web and bifurcation diagrams, and more.
If the program behaves strangely, there is a page of FAQ, which may help. If not, you can e-mail me at the address found in the program’s Help|About dialog box.
Follow the links for more information about the Windows 95/98/ME/2K/XP/Vista version or the Windows 3.1 version.
Larry Riddle has written an IFS exploration program that is well worth looking at. You can download it from his homepage.
23 Mar 2007: More changes, including the addition of a real Parameter Plane window, in which the famous “burning ship” fractal can be explored.
14 Mar 2007: Made several small changes, including the addition of a small collection of standard examples in the Julia, Web, Dynamic Complex Plane, and Parameter Plane windows.
4 Mar 2007: In Mandelbrot and Julia windows, created a window that projects the fractal stereographically onto the complex sphere. Also fixed the gray-table edit function, which was crashing.
26 Feb 2007: To unclutter some of the menus, I adopted a new method for managing values of constants (real and complex). I also modified the program code so that each zoom rectangle is the same shape as the zoom window to which it corresponds.
31 Jan 2007: After a several seconds of inactivity in Orbiter mode (Julia and IFS windows), the program now automatically returns to a neutral state.
10 Jan 2007: Somehow I managed to disable the color-selection windows for complex dynamic fractals. Should be ok now.
21 Nov 2006: A user reported that web diagrams had the distracting habit of re-initializing themselves at x=0 whenever they were allowed to overflow (“infinite” values). That has been fixed.
19 Nov 2006: Discovered how to word-wrap my help texts. I await news of unintended consequences.
2 Oct 2006: It is now possible to save some fractal images as Windows metafiles (emf format).
30 Jun 2006: Fixed a bug that was causing crashes after using File|Open to retrieve a parametric file.
22 May 2006: Fixed a bug that was causing the string-editing dialog box to crash when character L was selected.
10 May 2006: Fixed the Distance-Estimator Method, which was not working with the printer.
27 Feb 2006: Added a new Misc|Example to the complex parameter-plane window (another one of my favorites from the famous 2-hour Art Matrix video).
28 Dec 2005: In response to users reporting difficulty opening files by double-clicking file icons, new versions have been prepared that deal with file-naming conventions that allow spaces (and extra periods). See the FAQ.
14 Mar 2005: Added the File|New item to the complex dynamics window.
17 Feb 2005: Supplementary text inserted into a web diagram can now be rotated.
31 Jan 2005: Minor corrections: The text windows (help files, notebooks, tables, etc) were losing their carets (the blinking thing) now and then, and were not opening files correctly.
15 Jan 2005: It seems that the old “search” function that I installed years ago in text windows no longer works under Windows XP, so I had to revise it.
12 Sep 2004: The relation between box-count data and and the grid overlay was reported to be unclear, in the Dimension and String-rewriting windows. I hope it makes more sense now (see the appropriate Help files for details).
8 Sep 2004: A user reported that on some machines, the DEM mode was not completing its drawings of Mandelbrot and Julia sets. It should work better now, albeit a bit more slowly.
24 Jul 2004: A user noticed that Julia child windows were behaving strangely when they were re-opened after their View data had been changed (by zooming, for example). Should be ok now.
26 Oct 2003: Dynamic fractal files were not opening properly when retrieved; now they are. Also improved the performance of slide shows, thanks to suggestions from a user.
18 Oct 2003: A Windows XP user sent me the small file described above.
10 Oct 2003: Fixed the bitmap-to-clipboard function, and made available the two “network” versions described above.
2 Oct 2003: Some Julia children of parametric windows were crashing, and bifurcation windows were not saving their window descriptions. Fixed, I hope.
28 Sep 2003: Exterminated a couple of bugs, which affected the editing of complex examples, both dynamic and parametric.
24 Sep 2003: Improved the title bar of the promenade window for Mandelbrot windows. Also tried to make the editing of functions and target lists a clearer process for dynamic complex fractals.
3 Sep 2003: The orbit text in the web diagram window now updates automatically after a new calculation. I also disabled some of the automatic drawing of orbits.
17 Jan 2003: Another user noticed that the string-editing dialog box was ignoring requests to change the initialization string. Not any more.
8 Jan 2003: A user noticed that both of the string-rewriting fractal space-fillers in the library were not working. They have been repaired.
16 Dec 2002: The coordinate display in the bifurcation window no longer clips long numbers, the edit box in the web diagram parameter dialog is larger. Also exterminated a bug that was causing some bifurcation diagrams to crash.
26 Nov 2002: For the current file, the program no longer displays the full path (which is frequently too long) as the window title.
28 Jun 2002: The parameter “c” in the web-diagram window was not working, and the color-selection dialog in Mandelbrot-Julia windows was not updating itself properly. Now they are ok.
24 Jun 2002: The color-change dialog for targets in complex dynamic fractal windows was not refreshing its color display properly.
19 Jun 2002: Fixed a few bugs in the PiCTeX converter.
12 Jun 2002: The parser was misreading -x; not any more. In web-diagram windows, real parameters are controlled by sliders now, and the display is updated immediately. In particular, the seed value can be assigned to a slider.
22 Mar 2002: Fixed a few bugs, and redesigned the zoom-window feature for Mandelbrot, Julia, and general fractals to make it work better.
5 Mar 2002: New (Windows 2000) version of Winfeed uploaded today. I await reports of bugs.
