Running JavaQuat

You will need Java installed on your computer. That's available from Oracle at https://www.java.com/en/ It's free now for personal use. When Java is installed just double left click on the FractalTop<version number>.jar file. A window should appear with the title "*FrTop DRawing Window 1". You're ready to go.

It used to be free for any use when Java was owned by Sun Inc. A license is now required for commercial use. Fortunately, it's very inexpensive. IBM also has free versions of Java for the Linux Operating System.

Making Your First Fractal

Go to the "Draw" menu and select "Start". A fractal picture will be drawn. It's a picture of the fractal called the Mandelbrot set, named for it's discoverer, Benois Mandelbrot. Keyboard shortcuts for "Draw" are Control-D on Windows and Cmd-d on the Macintosh, as you can see on the menu.

Zooming In With The Mouse

The Mandelbrot set doesn't look too interesting until you enlarge part of it. You'll want to enlarge the edge around the black. (The black is the actual Mandelbrot set. The area around it is the pretty and interesting part.) To enlarge part of the picture use the mouse's left button to draw a rectangle. Press the button down at the upper left of the area you want to enlarge and drag the mouse to the lower right. Then release the mouse button. If you didn't get exactly what you wanted try again. When you have the correct area marked do another "Draw".

If you don't want to lose a picture you've drawn you have a couple of options. The obvious one is to save the picture to a file using the File menu. Later you can use the File menu to open the picture you saved. Since the details of what was drawn as well as the picture are saved in the file, you can resume enlargeing parts of the saved picture just the same as if it had just been drawn.

You can also create a new drawing window from the File menu. Then do "Draw" from its menu and you'll have the two pictures in two different windows. You can create as many drawing windows as you like. The active one, where the fractal will be drawn, is marked with an asterisk (i.e. *) at the front of the title of the window, which is at the top of the window.

Enlarging a portion of the fractal is easy. Click the mouse down on the corner of the area you want to enlarge and move the mouse to the diagonally opposite corner. Then release the mouse button. (For non-Macintosh mice use the left button.) A white rectangle will be drawn around the selected area. If you didn't get just the area you wanted try it again until you get it right. Then go to the "Draw" menu and pick "Start". If the original picture filled the window you and you select a rectangle of different proportions, you may need to reshape the window. You can do that before, during, or after you start drawing. When you pick an area to enlarge JavaQuat keeps the total area the same, even is the shape of the rectangle is different.

If you make the drawing area bigger than the picture, you can mark an area bigger thal the picture with the mouse. Then when you tell JavaQuat to draw again it will "zoom out". That is the original area you had drawn will be smaller and the surrounding area will be included in the new picture.

There are a couple of other ways to zoom in and out. One uses the "Adjust" menu and the other uses the "Parameters" window.

Saving Your Fractal

You will probably want to save the picture to your disk. Make sure that the "I/O to URL?" item in the "File" menu is not checked. If it is select it to turn it off. Then pick the "Save Image..." item from the "File" menu. You will be prompted for a pathname with a file navigation dialog box. Not only will you be saving your picture, but you will be saving all the information about your picture so that if at some later time you read the picture back into JavaQuat, you will be able to zoom in or out, etc.