Ubuntu Manpage: evolvotron - Creates generative art by an interactive evolutionary process.

NAME

       evolvotron - Creates generative art by an interactive evolutionary process.

SYNOPSIS

       evolvotron [Qt options] [options]

DESCRIPTION

       evolvotron  is  interactive  "generative  art" software to evolve images/textures/patterns
       through an iterative process of  random  mutation  and  user-selection  driven  evolution.
       Basically  it  displays a grid of random images; you click on one you like and the rest of
       the grid is refilled with variants of the one you picked.

       This man page describes only the command line  options.   A  more  complete  manual  fully
       describing  usage  via  the  application's GUI is accessible from the application's "Help"
       menu once it is running.

GENERAL OPTIONS

-a, --autocool
Enable autocooling by default.

-F, --fullscreen
Start in "fullscreen" mode (window manager permitting). [Press "Esc" key to revert
to normal windowed mode].

-g, --grid
colsxrows Number of columns in image display grid (defaults to 5x6).

-h, --help
Display a summary of command-line options and exit.

-j, --jitter
Enable sample jittering.

-m, --multisample
multisample Enables antialiased rendering. Valid values are 1,2,3,4. This specifies
the size of the sub-pixel sampling grid, so 1 provides the default one-sample-per-
pixel behaviour, while 4 provides 16 samples per pixel on a 4x4 grid.

-M, --menuhide
Start with menu and status bars suppressed. [Press "Esc" key to display them].

-p, -spheremap
Create spheremaps instead of planar textures. NB The middle-mouse adjustments will
not behave as expected in this mode.

-S, --startup
filename Specify a function file to be loaded on startup. This option can be used
multiple times, and any positional arguments will also be interpreted as such.
Loaded functions are placed on the grid from left to right, top to bottom; if
multiple functions in excess of what is needed to fill the grid cells are provided,
the extras will be ignored. If the grid is not fully filled with startup functions,
the remaining cells are filled at random normally. Note that resetting the
application will reload the specified function files again. Also note that using
this option multiple times has the potential to generate a lot of loading error
dialogs if e.g the path to all the files is wrong.

-U, --shuffle
Use in conjunction with -S / --startup options, randomly shuffles the order the
specified startup images are displayed in. A fresh shuffle will be also be used when
the application is reset.

ANIMATION OPTIONS

       -f, --frames
            frames Number of frames to animate (defaults to 1 i.e no animaton)

       -l, --linear
            Vary z linearly with time rather than sinusoidally over animation period.

       -s, --fps
            framerate Specify rate at which animations are displayed (as  an  integer  number  of
            frames per second).  Defaults to 8.

POWER-USER / DEBUG OPTIONS

       -D, --debug
            Debug  mode.   Currently  simply  sets  function weightings so virtually all function
            nodes are FunctionNoiseOneChannel.  This is  really  only  useful  to  developers  in
            conjunction with the -F/-u options.

       -E, --enlarement-threadpool
            Use  a  separate  thread  pool for computing enlargements.  Using this option ensures
            computation of enlargements continue to make some progress even while the  main  grid
            is  being  actively  worked  on.   However,  this will be at the expense of main grid
            rendering performance.  Without  this  option,  enlargements'  final  high-resolution
            renderings  are  invariably  lower  priority  than computation for images in the main
            grid.  See also the -N option to control the priority of threads in this pool.

       -n, --nice
            niceness Niceness  of  compute  threads  relative  to  the  main  application  thread
            (defaults to 4).

       -N, --Nice
            niceness  Niceness  (relative  to  the  main  application  thread) of compute threads
            dealing with enlargements (defaults to 8).  Only  effective  in  conjunction  with  a
            separate enlargement threadool (--E option).

       QtOptions
            The  Qt  GUI system recognizes an number of additional options (for example, standard
            X11 things like -geometry <width>x<height>; consult the  Qt  documentation  for  more
            information).  Note that these don't use the Gnu "double minus" option style used for
            evolvotron options.

       -t, --threads
            threads Number of compute threads in a thread pool (defaults to number of CPUs)

       -u, --unwrapped
            Use with the -F option to stop the specified function from being wrapped by a  random
            colouring and spatial transform node.

       -v, --verbose
            Verbose  mode.   Probably  most useful for getting a list of supported function names
            for use with the --F option.

       -x, --favourite
            functionname Force a specific function type to be used at the top level  of  all  new
            image  function  trees  (wrapped  by random colour and spatial transforms, unless the
            --unwrapped option is  also  specified).   This  can  also  be  controlled  from  the
            "Favourite" dialog.

EXAMPLES

       evolvotron -F FunctionSpiralLinear

       evolvotron -F FunctionKaleidoscope -u

AUTHOR

       evolvotron was written by Tim Day (www.timday.com) and is released under the conditions of
       the GNU General Public License.  For further details see the application's "About"  dialog
       (accessible from the "Help" menu), or the file LICENSE supplied with the source code.