bradshaw/nebulae

A multi-threaded, configurable, Nebulabrot renderer

Nebulae

A multi-threaded Nebulabrot renderer.

Building

• Install Rust, using the recommended "rustup" tool
• On the command line in the root folder, run cargo build --release
• Your executable, named nebulae will be placed in target/release

Usage

• On the command line, with nebulae available in your $PATH:

  • To render with default settings, just run nebulae

  • Change the output file name with the -c, --config <CONFIG> option:

    nebulae -o my_render.png

  • To get help, run nebulae help
    It should print the following:

    USAGE:
        nebulae [OPTIONS] [SUBCOMMAND]
    
    OPTIONS:
    -c, --config <CONFIG>     Configuration file
    -h, --help                Print help information
    -n, --no-intermediates    Do not write intermediate files
    -o, --output <OUTPUT>     File to write to [default: image.png]
    -V, --version             Print version information
    
    SUBCOMMANDS:
    help             Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
    wizard           Display configuration wizard
    write-default    Write the default configuration to TOML
    

Configuration

Configuration files can be provided as .toml files, using the following as a template:

# Iteration multiplier for each of the red, green, and blue channels
# Must be an array of three integers
limits = [
  7740,
  2580,
  860,
]
# Number of random samples to take, per channel, per pass
samples = 1000000
# Number of passes to run
passes = 100
# Resolution of the rendered image (size × size pixels)
size = 2048
# Colour correction curve to apply (value between 0 and 1, raised to this power)
curve = 0.5

To pass use a configuration file, use the -c, --config <CONFIG> option:

nebulae -c my_config.toml

To output a configuration file (with wizard and write-default subcommands), use the -c, --config <CONFIG>" option:

nebulae wizard -s new_config.toml

To speed up total rendering time, you can choose not to output an image after each pass with the -n, --no-intermediates flag.

Subcommands

write-default

Simply prints the default configuration in TOML format.

wizard

Guides you through a simple configuration with some nice defaults.