Antioxidants in Coffee

antioxidant - too broad/general
polyphenols - still too broad

Try:
caffeic acid
ferulic acid
p-coumaric acid
chlorogenic acid

cosic.org
Antioxidants In Coffee

pubs.acs.org1
Absorption of Phenolic Acids in Humans after Coffee Consumption

pubs.acs.org2
In Vitro Antioxidant Activity of Coffee Compounds and Their Metabolites

Plow thru that verbiage until your head hurts. LOL

Apophysis Art

Processed some of my Apophysis flames...

Fantasy Mountain Lanscape:


Layered two fractals/flames--top mt. with bottom blanket of land. Added the lens flare top left in Paint Shop Pro.

Planet:


Stars added in Paint Shop Pro.

Energy:


I liked the graininess of "Energy" so it is a screenshot--not rendered.

Wave:


Wheat:


Frosty Leaves:


Making leafy stuff in Apophysis is a high probability just messin' around with it. I have lots of that in various shapes and shades. I liked this one because it was a little different--looked frosty.

Swirling Linears - Apophysis

Make 7 triangles all Linear 1
Make 6 of them long and skinny and angle them
3 across X and 3 across Y
I think I might have pumped up the colors on those?
The 7th triangle in the middle is slightly skewed.
Then Final Transform (FX) set to Linear 1 AND Ex 1.



I imported transparent png fractal into Paint Shop Pro and duplicate layers, flip, mirror, layer blends, blah blah.

Sinusoidal Rain - Apophysis

I'm starting to have some fun in Apo, finally.

New Blank Flame
Tri1 - Sinusoidal 1
Dup 4 times so now have 5 Tri's.
Then
Tri5 change to Spherical 1 and Drag X down and a little to the left to stretch the tri and make it long and skinny.
It might be a tad rotated and angled too.



COMPARE - Try just two transforms/triangles
Tri1 - Sinusoidal 1 - change Weight from .5 to 1
Tri2 - Spherical 1 and same shape.

Similar but not quite the same.
The dups result in more detail.

Tri = Triangle/Transform
Dup = Duplicate

Shapeshifter Eagle Wings to Wheel - Apophysis

Fractal One:


Layering Fractal One and Two in Paint Shop Pro:


Fractal Two:


Just a random 2 tri flame I was playing around with.
Spherical and Bubble variations.
I tried layering some others but they didn't look good.
Might be something I could animate?
I haven't tried that in Apo yet.

GOOD TIPS HERE:
Deviantart Apo News

Apophysis Spiralia

Thought I'd try a light background on a fractal.
Looks like bead work.
Looks totally different on a black background.

Messin' around with CabinTom's Spiralia script.

Here's another one.
Yellow background this time, just for kicks.



Besides the layering, also some minor work on the center in Paint Shop Pro.

I liked the grainy view of this one in Apo a lot, but could not render it like that.

Here's the screenshot.



I do so many different things I can't even remember all the steps that got me there.
I do remember to just keep running the script over and over again until I found something interesting and then going into the Transform Editor and move, twirl, resize, deform the triangles.
Very simple 2 triangle fractal.
Tri1 is Fan2 Variation
Tri2 is Julian Variation

Apophysis Post Transforms

Apophysis fractal.
Working on Post Transforms.
Tut

Flam3 did not render the colors accurately, but I ended up liking that one better.
Apo renderer was accurate with the colors.

YouTube Funny For The Day

Party-Train at YouTube.

Perfectly Sync'd.
I love it!
Funny!
It's funnier if you don't know much about it before you go there, so I'm not going to say what it is.

From: MeFi
Comment Funny: "Music was very quiet back then."

Original at YouTube also.
Longer clip and better quality than the one mentioned at MeFi.

Search YouTube

imdb ref.: Way Out West

Sierpinski and Apophysis Part 4

Something I did not mention in my previous Sierpinski posts was that I have an Apophysis Script that creates a Sierpinski triangle. I think it came with the old Apo 2.02 download (not beta).

Scripts are just text files so can open them in any text editor.

What the script does (Transform Editor view):


Compare with my previous Sierpinskis (click Apophysis label or tag at end of post).

Something else the script did which is not readily apparent from just looking at the Transform Editor screenshot is it set the weight (Transform Tab) the same for all three triangles/transforms (1/3 = .3333). Under Triangle Tab there is a scales icon that balances weights. Not sure what that does.

So what happens if you set the weight differently on one?
It looks like shading the fractal at different angles depending on which triangle you tweak.

The script also set the colors in the Color Tab area:
tri1 - 0
tri2 - .5
tri3 - 1

I'm not sure what that did exactly. Spread out the gradient evenly on the fractal maybe?
If I set them all to 0 and then tweak one I can see in the Editor Transform window what it does to the coloring on the fractal.
That's probably the best way to find out what it does.
Comparing it to Paint Shop Pro gradients, it looks like the same gradient but different angle and repeat values applied to each tri/trans.
Coloring a fractal can drastically change the look of it.

The last step in the script was to center the flame on the screen.
Equivalent to Flame, Reset Location (F12)

In The Deep Freeze, Sundogs

Outdoor temperature at 6 am 15 Jan 09.
I couldn't believe it.
Had to take a pic.
That's taken from inside the house, all lights off, thru the window, with a flashlight and DSLR set to tungsten WB.



Current Temps for North America
(I like this view.)

I wonder if there will be any sundogs this morning.
One of the beauties of a cold winter's day.



"Halos near Longview, Alberta Canada imaged by Cally Coman. Frozen Alberta extends to its skies for the halos tell us that there are low level "diamond dust" ice crystals in the air. The tall bright sundogs appear in front of the hills because the crystals forming them are closer. Tall sundogs are made by large plate shaped crystals wobbling and fluttering markedly in their downward drift (at some stage, tall pillars become difficult to separate from 22° halo fragments). Smaller plates are more aerodynamically stable and deliver squatter dogs. The same unsteady crystals made the upper and lower sun pillars and the parhelic circle passing faintly through the sun and extending more brightly beyond each sundog."

Sundog Image Gallery at Atmospheric Optics.
A fascinating place to visit.

Via MeFi

Hard Sun, Eddie Vedder - Music

Song For The Day
Still listening to my songs in alphabetical order by title.
Here's another one I forgot about.
GOOD!

Hard Sun, Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
Into The Wild Soundtrack (wiki info)
Scene from the movie featuring the song currently at youtube.

Song written by Indio (Gordon Peterson)
currently at youtube.

Google Song
Google Images

Another Apo Julia Fractal

How To Make A Grand Julia
UPDATE 22 Apr 11: Dead link. Look for info here.

I haven't gotten too excited about these Julia/Julian fractals so far.
They seem popular.
But...
They tend to be dull and noisy. (Mine do anyway.)
The patterning is difficult to perfect.
They feel kinda dead/heavy to me.
Just not very alive and energetic.
Variations were all Julia and/or Julian type instead of Linear.
Some of the "julia" Variables are tweaked also.

Here's the screenshot summary reference I made.


I compared this Julia to the other Julias I've made and the triangles/transforms were quite different.
Tuts mentioned in my first Apo post.



Maybe someday I'll understand those differences better than I do now.
I'm still waiting to create a fractal that really WOWs me.
It ain't happenin' yet.

I've seen some amazing beautiful fractal art.

I sure hope I can make something like that someday.

Apo Barnsley Fern, Post Transforms

Apo Barnsley Fern Tut
UPDATE 22 Apr 11: Dead link. Look for info here.

Sometimes the fractals are way too tiny on the screen. I can barely see them. That was the case when trying to make this fern.
In the Adjust Menu popup (F5), if I zoomed in, it slowed Apo down to a crawl. BUT if I scaled it up, that worked. (My Display Rendering Quality is always set very low at 5 for processing speed.)

I didn't like my fern much.
The instructions were inaccurate for my version of Apo, so a little frustrating to follow. I still learned from them, though.
And forget about the third iteration stage-yikes. I was doing good just to get the second iteration halfway decent.

Transform Editor info, etc.:
(I like creating these little screenshot summaries for reference.)



Post Transforms Tut



I was able to make the box, but it had a faint patterning inside it and was not solid noise grain like the tut example.
I could duplicate it, but then the boxes became very faint, barely visible on screen and no way could I come close to that impossible triangle.
Post transform stage was very difficult to work with in Apo.
Teensy boxes.
Right click mouse drag in transform editor to move the view.
Mouse scroll to zoom in and out.
I think double click on mouse will bring the view back to normal.
That helped, but still, very laborious.

LABELS: Apophysis

Apo Wing

Apophysis Wing Tut
UPDATE 22 Apr 11: Dead link. Look for info here.



The wing tut pretty much went as instructed, except it was rotated.
I liked the suggestion of using the Transform Editor Color Tab sliders to get the colors to radiate out.
Gradients are kinda funky in Apo. I can never tell what gradient is selected.

Transform Editor info etc.:



For backgrounds, I render transparent png and then layer in Paint Shop Pro.
I like something not quite black and a little texture in it, so I usually end up using the MuRa Clouds Plugin.
Then the stars are noise/threshold for the small fine ones and then ULead Particle Plugin for a few bigger ones.

I usually create duplicate layers of the fractals and then try different layering blends to pump up the colors.
The wing was duplicated and mirrored in Paint Shop Pro layers.

Sierpinski and Apophysis Part 3

The fun starts when you take that 3 triangle Sierpinski setup in Apo that I blogged about and change it.

What happens when you move those triangles around?

What happens when you resize them or pivot them?

[translate (move), rotate, reflect (flip), scale (resize), shear (pivot, distort)
See Tut]
UPDATE 22 Apr 11: Dead link. Look for info here.

And there's a LOT more you can do in Apophysis with those triangles.





3D!
Or something.
Changed the gradient.
(All images are low resolution screenshots.)

Here's that Sierpinski Quilt I mentioned in an earlier post.




Change the gradient.



This one is marked "rotate gradient and change weight."


Something I noticed when just moving around the triangles is I'll see imperfections in the patterning. The pattern will be off just a tad. This is the advantage of typing in the numbers for exact coordinates versus just moving the triangles around.



This is just some of my additional comments after working thru the tuts.

Tutorials

Sierpinski and Apophysis Part 2

Remember this?



Quilt 1
Filter Factory Plugin
Gallery F, Magic Triangles Q

It's Sierpinski's triangle.

Yeah, those free plugins generate fractals.
If you have a graphics software program that can use plugins, that's an easier way to generate fractals.

One of the tutorials I mentioned in my previous blog post had another fractal I've seen in my free plugins.

She called it Sierpinski's Quilt.
UPDATE 22 Apr 11: Dead link. Look for info here.

Now I know I've seen that pattern in my free plugins somewhere.
Looking through my files I found some similar patterning in:

Filter Factory Plugin
Gallery S, Patches Factory and also Patches Factory Competition



Something fun to do with those is run them through a kaleidoscope maker.

From this (Filter Factory Patches plugin):


To this (Paint Shop Pro Kaleidoscope):


I used Paint Shop Pro's kaleidoscope, but Mehdi has a free Kaleidoscope plugin that's nice also.

I was working with purple and green colors, but these plugins make many different pattern colors.

Here's a different color scheme example.
From this:


To this:

Apophysis, Sierpinski's Triangles, and The Chaos Game In Excel

I continue to study fractals as it relates to Apophysis.
What follows are my summary notes of the whole process I went thru recently, so I can remember what I did and what I learned.

I worked through the Apophysis tutorials here.
UPDATE 22 Apr 11:
Dead links. Tutorials can be found here.

I liked how the 2nd tutorial related MCRM and Sierpinski's Triangle (Gasket) to Apophysis. (Those right triangles in the Transform Editor within Apophysis.)

Sierpinski's Gasket is an example of an iterated function system (IFS), and of a Multiple Copy Reduction Machine (MCRM).
The tut says Apophysis's Transform Editor shows the first two iterations of an MCRM.
So the 1st iteration is the base triangle (dotted line stationary triangle in Apophysis transform editor.)



For the 2nd iteration, start with a new blank flame, create 3 triangles/transforms (linear variations), scale down by 200, and arrange them inside the base triangle (dotted line stationary triangle) so it looks like the 2nd iteration of a Sierpinski's triangle.



Wiki has a transparent png and an svg image of the Sierpinksi Interations on an equilateral triangle. There is also an animated gif showing the progression of the iterations.

It's important to see the transparency, because otherwise, it is not readily apparent that these iterations have holes in them.
Instead of posting a transparent png here, I'll post a screenshot of the image done within Paint Shop Pro. I think it illustrates the transparency better than having my blog background show through.



The Apophysis fractal result is what those triangles look like after many iterations.
Below is a low resolution screenshot result.



The tutorial on weights and noise says Apophysis uses the chaos game to generate fractals. (This helped me understand the noise problems a little better.)

That got me thinking...
Could I create such a thing in an Excel spreadsheet.
Googling...
Ah yes, somebody already did that, of course.
At themathplace.org.
Look for the Chaos Game Video and pdf file there. The pdf file explains the formulas.
Also, check out Fractal Drawing Video and pdf file. That's interesting too.
He must use different versions of Word (Fractal Drawing) and Excel (Chaos Game) than I have because I cannot display a grid in Word nor can I use that conditional Excel formula he used.
I could do the same thing in Paint Shop Pro that he did in Word.
And I came up with a formula that works in my version of Excel (Excel 97) that does the same thing and generates the Sierpinski's triangle.
He generates random numbers with formulas and plots them on a scatter chart.
(He must have had his calc on manual in Excel.)



Here's the formulas in plain text format for copy/paste.

This formula works:
=IF($A6=1,(B$2+B5)/2*1,0)+IF($A6=2,(B$3+B5)/2*1,0)+IF($A6=3,(B$4+B5)/2*1,0)

This formula did not work:
=(B$1+B4)/2*($A5=1)+(B$2+B4)/2*($A5=2)+(B$3+B4)/2+($A5=3)

This formula is okay:
=INT(RAND()*3)+1

And viola, you get a Sierpinski's triangle fractal on a scatter chart.
Cool.



So why am I going thru all of this?
It helps me learn how Apophysis works so I can make better fractals, hopefully.