NAME
flow - strange attractors.
SYNOPSIS
flow [-display host:display.screen]
[-visual visual] [-window] [-root] [-count number]
[-cycles number] [-periodic|-no-periodic]
[-search|-no-search] [-rotate|-no-rotate] [-ride|-no-ride]
[-box|-no-box] [-dbuf|-no-dbuf] [-ncolors number] [-delay
number]
DESCRIPTION
Strange attractors formed of flows in a 3D
differential equation phase space. Features the popular attractors
described by Lorentz, Rössler,
Birkhoff and Duffing, and can now discover entirely
new attractors by itself.
OPTIONS
- -visual visual
- Specify which visual to use. Legal values are the name of a
visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific
visual.
- -window
- Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default.
- -root
- Draw on the root window.
- -count number
- Number of particles in the flow. Default: 3000
- -size number
- Length of particle trails. Negative values indicate randomness.
The computational load of a given flow depends on (particle count)
* (trail length). Default: -10
- -cycles number
- Timeout before changing objects. 0 - 800000. Default: 10000.
- -periodic
- -no-periodic
- turn on/off periodic attractors. These are flows in 2 dependent
variables, with a periodic dependence on a third independent
variable (eg time). Flow will sometimes choose to start all the
particles in the same phase to illustrate the flow's cross-section.
Default: on
- -search
- -no-search
- turn on/off search for new attractors. If this is enabled, a
fraction of the computing cycles is directed to searching a
60-dimensional parameter space for new strange attractors. If
periodic flows are enabled, these can be searched too. Watch
carefully - you are quite likely to see mathematical objects that
have never been seen before, and since the parameters are not
recorded, you'll probably never see them again! Default: on
- -rotate
- -no-rotate
- turn on/off rotating around attractor. Default: on
- -ride
- -no-ride
- turn on/off ride in the flow. Default: on
If both -rotate and -ride are enabled the viewpoint will
occasionally fly between the two views.
- -box
- -no-box
- turn on/off bounding box. Default: on
- -dbuf
- -no-dbuf
- turn on/off double buffering. If Flow runs slowly in full
screen, but fast in a smaller window (eg on old graphics cards with
too little memory), try turning this option off. Default: on
- -ncolors number
- Number of Colors. Default: 200.
- -delay number
- Per-frame delay, in microseconds. Default: 10000 (0.01
seconds.).
ENVIRONMENT
- DISPLAY
- to get the default host and display number.
- XENVIRONMENT
- to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global
resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
SEE ALSO
X(1),
xscreensaver(1)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1996 by Tim Auckland <Tim.Auckland@Procket.com>
Incorporating some code from Stephen Davies Copyright (c) 2000
Search code based on techniques described in "Strange
Attractors: Creating Patterns in Chaos" by Julien C. Sprott
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software
and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby
granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all
copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission
notice appear in supporting documentation.
This file is provided AS IS with no warranties of any kind. The
author shall have no liability with respect to the infringement of
copyrights, trade secrets or any patents by this file or any part
thereof. In no event will the author be liable for any lost revenue
or profits or other special, indirect and consequential damages.
Adapted from swarm.c Copyright (c) 1991 by Patrick J. Naughton.
Adapted from xswarm by Jeff Butterworth. (butterwo@ncsc.org).
AUTHOR
Tim Auckland