Peter (aka KPK) and I just exchanged a .upr set--and it really was interesting to see the different interpretation that resulted. I know that in several mailing lists (which are program specific) this is common, and would like to see more of it here, if possible.

Drawbacks (that have been mentioned in the past) are primarily due to use of different programs, and that some folks would be left out of such an exchange.

1. Does anyone know of any interpretor programs that can (for example) read a UltraFractal upr file and turn it into a Fractal Explorer file?? (Or other programs, etc., ....) Maybe our mathematically minded members could help?
2. Or should we try to form buddy systems? But that again could lead to cliques, which I would like to avoid...
3. Or should we try to have more theme challenges, and let each person work alone inside their own program? :(

If anyone has any suggestions, comments, help---feel free to chime in. I think this could really get this forum jumping!

Rosemary

P. S. Forgot to mention: Anyone who would like to play with any of my pics, and who has UF, just ask! I'm always willing to share and see the results!

I suggested fractal roundrobins a while ago when Firefly became the new moderator of the forum. I think it would be interesting and fun. Sadly, I can't advice on the compatibility subject. :-( But I, for one, would like to paticipate in fractal roundrobins, or things like that.

That was the upr for Phoenix Moon Rosemary? I liked the adaption of that, and this is a really good idea, i would be interested in doing something like that too. Im afraid i cant help with the compatibility issue either though :/

Most of the time, the parameter files are specific to each program, and highly dependent on the features of that program. Theoretically, any fractal program with both a formula parser and the ability to control color values directly can render the same fractals as any other program, as long as the necessary formulas are available. In practice, this turns out to be very complex. Ultra Fractal, for example, can import many FractInt fractals--but not all of them, because it doesn't do everything that FractInt does. Going the other way, I've managed to render an Ultra Fractal image in FractInt, but to do so I had to write a true color simulator into the FractInt formula, and the formula was specific to the multi-layered image I was rendering. Chaos Pro can open many UF parameter and formula files, too, but this required careful programming on the part of its author. So while it is possible, it's not often done, because it's very complicated and far from perfect. For the fractal artist working with their own images, wanting to import them into new software and tweak them further, these are useful tools. For people wishing to share images, they're less useful, because unless you send an image too, you can never be sure the parameters are being interpreted correctly!