Archived pictures

Q24a: Where are fractal pictures archived?
A24a: Fractal images (GIFs, etc.) used to be posted to alt.fractals.pictures;
this newsgroup has been replaced by alt.binaries.pictures.fractals.  Pictures
from 1990 and 1991 are available via anonymous ftp:
csus.edu:/pub/alt.fractals.pictures [130.86.90.1].

Many Mandelbrot set images are available via anonymous ftp:
ftp.ira.uka.de:/pub/graphics/fractals [129.13.10.93].

Fractal images including some recent alt.binaries.pictures.fractals images are
archived at spanky.triumf.ca:/fractals [128.189.128.27].

Some fractal images are available on the WWW at
http://www.cnam.fr/fractals.html .  These images are available by ftp:
ftp.cnam.fr:/pub/Fractals .  Fractal animations in MPG and FLI format are in
ftp.cnam.fr:/pub/Fractals/anim .  Another collection of fractal images is
archived at ftp.maths.tcd.ie/pub/images/Computer [134.226.81.10].  Some
fractal and other computer-generated images are available on the WWW at
gopher://olt.et.tudelft.nl:1251/11/computer .

A collection of interesting smoke- and flame-like jpeg iterated function
system images is available on the WWW at
http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/spot/web/images.html .  Some
images are also available by ftp: hopeless.mess.cs.cmu.edu:/usr/spot/pub/film
.

Q24b: How do I view fractal pictures from alt.binaries.pictures.fractals?
A24b: A detailed explanation is given in the "alt.binaries.pictures FAQ"
(See pictures-faq).  This is posted to the pictures newsgroups and is
available by ftp: rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq
[18.70.0.209].

In brief, there is a series of things you have to do before viewing these
posted images.  It will depend a little on the system your working with, but
there is much in common. Some newsreaders have features to automatically
extract and decode images ready to display ("e" in trn) but if you don't you
can use the following manual method:

1.  Save/append all posted parts sequentially to one file.

2. Edit this file and delete all text segments except what is between the
BEGIN-CUT and END-CUT portions. This means that BEGIN-CUT and END-CUT lines
will disappear as well. There will be a section to remove for each file
segment as well as the final END-CUT line.  What is left in the file after
editing will be bizarre garbage starting with begin 660 imagename.GIF and then
about 6000 lines all starting with the letter "M" followed by a final "end"
line.  This is called a uuencoded file.

3.  You must uudecode the uuencoded file.  There should be an appropriate
utility at your site; "uudecode filename" should work under Unix.  Ask a
system person or knowledgeable programming type.  It will decode the file and
produce another file called imagename.GIF. This is the image file.

4.  You must use another utility to view these GIF images.  It must be capable
of displaying color graphic images in GIF format.  (If you get a JPG format
file, you may have to convert it to a GIF file with yet another utility.) In
the XWindows environment, you may be able to use "xv", "xview", or
"xloadimage" to view GIF files.  If you aren't using X, then you'll either
have to find a comparable utility for your system or transfer your file to
some other system.  You can use a file transfer utility such as Kermit to
transfer the binary file to an IBM-PC.