The Transformation Editor

Main Controls

Edit

This control opens and closes the transformation editor.
It also, changes the view windows from the standard point based render, to a vector representation of the fractal elements.

New and Delete

These buttons creates and remove transformations.

• New, Creates a new transformation.
• Delete, deletes the current transformation.

Arrows

These two arrows let you to move into the transformation list.
In the View Windows, the selected transformation are colored in Yellow, while the unselected ones are colored in blue.

Transformation Index

This label shows the index number of the current transformation.

Save and Load

These buttons saves and load the current set of tranformations to a file.

• Save, exports the set of tranformations to a file.
• Load, imports a set of tranformations from a file (it changes the current fractal type if the transformations are from a different fractal).
  
  

Undo

This button undoes the transformation last change.

The View Panel

This control alternates between the vector representation of the elements of the scene, and the actual camera itself.
The options are:

• Vector, The Standard editor representation.
• Points, Real time view of the fractal. Use it if you want to fine tune the baseshape parameters.

Note: The mouse controls of the Vector representation remains in this view mode.

Window Viewport

This control let you chosse between four types of viewports:

• Camera: The actual camera angle, you can rotate and pan the camera (using the mouse buttons). The transformation and viewport movements are restricted to the (X,Z) plane.
• Front: This is a front viewport (+Z). Here you can use the right mouse button to change the transformation position in the (X,Y) plane. The left mouse button let you pan over the plane, and the zoom slider let you zoom in it.
• Left: In this vieport (-X), you can control the movement of the transformation in the (Y,Z) plane with the right mouse button. The left mouse button let you pan over the plane, and the zoom slider let you zoom in it.
• Top: In this vieport (+Y), you can control the movement of the transformation in the (X,Z) plane with the right mouse button. The left mouse button let you pan over the plane, and the zoom slider let you zoom in it.

Mouse Controls

This selector is mainly used to control how the left mouse button operates in the Camera viewport.
The options are:

• Rotate, left mouse button will rotate the camera.
• Pan, the left mouse button, will be used to pan around the scene.

Transformation Controls

Flame Variation Controls

This controls is only usable when you have selected the Flame Fractal type.
You can use the options (located in the left side of the panel) to activate the variations. Also, you can use the right side sliders to change the variations weights (negative weights are allowed, and they give interesting results).
As for the moment, only 10 variations are supported, in next releases, this number will be increased.

Trackball

The Trackball control consists in a virtual sphere made of three colors. This sphere controls the orientation of the transformation. In order to rotate the transformation, put the mouse pointer over the trackball and move it with the left mouse button pressed. The colors represents:

• Green, Rotations around the X axis.
• Red, Rotations around the Y axis.
• Blue, Rotations around the Z axis.

Rotation

This control restricts the rotation of the transformation to an specific axis. The options are:

• T, Full trackball rotation.
• X, Rotation restricted around the X axis.
• Y, Rotation restricted around the X axis.
• Z, Rotation restricted around the X axis.
• 0, Resets the baseshape rotations.

Translation

This control restricts the translation of the transformation to an specific axis. The options are:

• F, Full translation (no axis restriction).
• X, Translation restricted to the X axis.
• Y, Translation restricted to the Y axis.
• Z, Translation restricted to the Z axis.
• 0, No Translation, the transformation is centered at (0,0,0).

Scale

This control affects the transformation scale in the three axes. Its important to note that the scale are applied before the transformation rotation. The options are:

• X, Scale in X.
• Y, Scale in Y.
• Z, Scale in Z.

A value of 1.0 means no scaling.

Shear

This control affects the transformation with shear values in six possible directions. Its important to note that the shear and scale transformations are applied before the rotation transformation is applied. The options are:

• XY, Shear in the XY direction.
• XZ, Shear in the XZ direction.
• YX, Shear in the YX direction.
• YZ, Shear in the YZ direction.
• ZX, Shear in the ZX direction.
• ZY, Shear in the ZY direction.

A value of 0.0 means no shear.

Weight Controls

The transformation weights values determine the probability of a given transformation. This probability is used by the chaos game to determine how often a transformation will be applied.
The controls are:

• The Weight Parameter Control:This slider is used to control the actual weight of the transformation. Note: The sum of all weights must be 1.0
• The Normalize Button: Since the sum of all transformations must be 1.0, this control sums the weights of all transformations and divides it by the result. This scales down the weights and causes that the sum of all will become 1.0
• The Equalize Button: This button divides 1.0 by the number of transformations. This cause that every transformation has the same weight value.

The Transformation Window

The Transformation Editor Window shows the following elements:

• The Selected Transformation: On Incendia, the transformations are represented as Dotted Circles. While this representation is clear for showing parameters like rotation, scaling and shear, it will fails on variations. I’m still deciding if this will remains. In the case of the selected transformation, it is colored in bright Yellow.
• Unselected Transformations: The unselected transformations are colored in Blue.
• Baseshapes: The Baseshapes aren’t used in this editor, but they appears here colored in Green.
• The Scene Center: This element points to the center of the scene (camera rotations happens around this point), and its represented as a green cube.
• Iterations Preview Points: These points are the actual iteration of the whole fractal components (baseshapes and transformations). They are White colored and serve as a guide for editing the elements.