Winfeed for Windows 95/98/ME/2K/XP/Vista (548K)
Click the above link to download the program. (21 Dec 08)
Page last updated: 15 Jun 09
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.
Foreign-language version:
Korean (prepared with the help of Chang Soo Lee (15 Jun 09)
Larry Riddle has written an IFS exploration program that is well worth looking at. You can download it from his homepage.
15 Jun 09: Uploaded the Korean version today.
21 Dec 08: Added a new example to the string-rewriting Library.
26 Nov 08: At the request of a user, string-rewriting angles can now be specified in one of two formats. There are some more examples.
13 Nov 08: Added a new (non-fractal) example to the string-rewriting Library.
6 Sept 08: More revisions, in Mandelbrot, Julia, and Dynamic-Plane windows. These will be evident when you edit either settings or targets. In particular, the user can now request a “continuous” display of colors, in contrast to the traditional “banded” display. There are also a few new (prepared) examples in the Misc menu, with more coming when I have the time. The help texts for the Edit and Misc menus explain the new features.
21 Aug 08: Major revisions, the principal one being the elimination of the tiny (113-color) fixed palette. The user now has access to all 16777216 colors, and the interface for managing them has changed. Every effort has been made to maintain compatibility with earlier versions, meaning that existing files should still open. I await reports of anomalies and oversights, and welcome suggestions.
23 Mar 07: More changes, including the addition of a real Parameter Plane window, in which the famous “burning ship” fractal can be explored.
14 Mar 07: 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 07: 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 07: 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 07: After a several seconds of inactivity in Orbiter mode (Julia and IFS windows), the program now automatically returns to a neutral state.
10 Jan 07: Somehow I managed to disable the color-selection windows for complex dynamic fractals. Should be ok now.
21 Nov 06: 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 06: Discovered how to word-wrap my help texts. I await news of unintended consequences.
2 Oct 06: It is now possible to save some fractal images as Windows metafiles (emf format).
30 Jun 06: Fixed a bug that was causing crashes after using File|Open to retrieve a parametric file.
22 May 06: Fixed a bug that was causing the string-editing dialog box to crash when character L was selected.
10 May 06: Fixed the Distance-Estimator Method, which was not working with the printer.
27 Feb 06: 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 05: 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 05: Added the File|New item to the complex dynamics window.
17 Feb 05: Supplementary text inserted into a scatter plot can now be rotated.
31 Jan 05: 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 05: 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 04: 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 04: 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 04: 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 03: 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 03: A Windows XP user sent me the small file described above.
10 Oct 03: Fixed the bitmap-to-clipboard function, and made available the two “network” versions described above.
2 Oct 03: Some Julia children of parametric windows were crashing, and bifurcation windows were not saving their window descriptions. Fixed, I hope.
28 Sep 03: Exterminated a couple of bugs, which affected the editing of complex examples, both dynamic and parametric.
24 Sep 03: 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 03: 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 03: Another user noticed that the string-editing dialog box was ignoring requests to change the initialization string. Not any more.
8 Jan 03: A user noticed that both of the string-rewriting fractal space-fillers in the library were not working. They have been repaired.
16 Dec 02: 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 02: For the current file, the program no longer displays the full path (which is frequently too long) as the window title.
28 Jun 02: 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 02: The color-change dialog for targets in complex dynamic fractal windows was not refreshing its color display properly.
19 Jun 02: Fixed a few bugs in the PiCTeX converter.
12 Jun 02: 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 02: Fixed a few bugs, and redesigned the zoom-window feature for Mandelbrot, Julia, and general fractals to make it work better.
5 Mar 02: New (Windows 2000) version of Winfeed uploaded today. I await reports of bugs.