As the "Gradient Kaleidoscope Tool" stack is nearing completion, but
still crashes Rev 3.5 more or less frequently, I have uploaded a number
of examples produced with the Kaleidoscope tool to demonstrate what can
be achieved with it.
Either go to <http://www.sanke.org/MetaMedia> and scroll down on the
left side until you see "Kaleidoscope Galleries",
or go directly to
<http://www.sanke.org/MetaMedia/GradientKaleidoscopeGallery1.htm> or
<http://www.sanke.org/MetaMedia/GradientKaleidoscopeGallery2.htm> and
<http://www.sanke.org/MetaMedia/GradientKaleidoscopeGallery3.htm>
The examples have been produced by mainly applying two basic techniques
- described here in a much simplified way:
1. Putting two copies of an image on top of each other, setting their
blendlevels to 50, setting a different angle for the upper image, and
then taking a snapshot.
2. Selecting a triangle with an appropriate base width from the original
gradient image (or: any image of course can be used) and then arrange
these triangles to form three-sided to multi-sided polygons.
The original image need not be an exact square, but can be of any
different width and height. The triangle elements will be adapted
automatically to their required height and width to fit into the created
polygon if you have for example a "wider" or "heigher" original image.
Presently I have implemented scripted procedures in the tool stack to
produce
- a triangle-polygon, consisting of three smaller traingles
- square, consisting of four triangles
- pentagon, 5 triangles
- hexagon
- octagon
- rotated octagon
- hexadecagon, 16 triangles
- 32-sided polygon, and
- multisided polygons.
Up from a hexadecagon it might be better to apply an oval mask, but I
have also included hexadecagon examples with discernable sides.
The trickiest part for me was to find the algorithms for the
triangle-polygon and the pentagon, e.g. for the triangle-polygon you
have to compute the relative height of the smaller 3 triangles to fit
exactly into the bigger triangle (which is roughly "width of the
triangle divided by 3.47") and then you have to find a way to position
the triangle parts in the script to form the respective polygon, which
is somewhat difficult because rotated images with an angle other than a
multiple of 90 have rects of a different size. Finally, you have the to
find out the rect from which you need to take the final snapshot from
the grouped smaller triangles.
A number of examples especially in Galleries 2 and 3 have a somewhat
"naturalistic" look because they display certain irregularities that
were brought about by different - and often repeatedly applied -
algorithms, like skewing, mirroring, changing color values,
enlarging/stretching, despeckling, additional gradient overlays,
lithography, sharpen, and smoothing filters etc..
Concerning the crashes:
Quite regularly, about every three days, but sometimes even more
frequently, I get crashes with Rev.3.5.. Stack and IDE vanish at once
and completely, in rare cases I get a warning from the Windows system
that the Rev.exe file has problem (when working on my Mac, I get the
same kind of crashes). I have had the case of one more corrupted stack,
which however was intact in so far as I could retrieve the scripts from
the stack with a word processor (In another such case I had reported
earlier a substantial part of the corrupted stack had even be deleted -
and another - not corrupted - stack, from which I had try to copy
objects had been partially damaged, i.e. a number fo objects were
missing afterwards including such element I had *not* tried to transfer).
I have not yet been able to find out the exact cause and its location in
the scripts for these crashes. I have the feeling that somehow "toxic
waste" is accumulating in stack and/or engine which then causes crashes
when a certain level has been reached. It may well be related to the
frequently applied procedures of various kinds of snapshot-taking,
masking, setting angles, and grouping or regrouping of images.--
I hope for the next version of Rev to offer a better platform for such
tasks, and I need such a safe basis before I go public with my Gradient
Kaleidoscope stack.
Another reason for the delay is that due to other predelictions and
obligations programming with Revolution is now less at the center of my
interests than it has been before.
Best regards,
Wilhelm Sanke
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