EVOLVOTRON_RENDER(1)

💖 EVOLVOTRON_RENDER 💖 (section 1 of the Evolvotron manual, bestie)

okay so. you found the page for evolvotron_render, and honestly? iconic tool, underrated, we love her. she renders an evolvotron function tree into an actual image file. let's get into it 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

evolvotron_render — Render an evolvotron function tree to an image.

like. that's the whole job. render the tree. make the picture. slay.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

evolvotron_render [options] imagefile.[png|ppm]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the vibe. evolvotron_render takes an evolvotron image function off its standard input (yes, stdin, she's reading from the pipe bestie) and renders it out to the image file you named. which type of image? that's up to the suffix on the filename — and if the suffix isn't a recognised one, she just defaults to ppm. no drama, no cap.

where do you even get image functions though? two options, both valid:

• save them straight out of the evolvotron application 💾
• or generate them with evolvotron_mutate 🧬

and if you want the deep lore on image functions themselves, go read the evolvotron manual — it's accessible right from the evolvotron application's Help menu. that's where the good stuff lives, iykyk.

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👑 COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS 👑

one bullet per flag, no skips, no shortcuts, we respect the craft 💅

• -f, --frames frames — this one generates multi-frame animations. the way it works: .fnnnnnn gets inserted into the filename you specified — before the filetype suffix, if there even is one. and yes you can use this on functions that weren't evolved in animation mode, but lowkey there's no guarantee they have any interesting time/z variation. so like, use at your own risk, she's not promising you cinema 🎬
• -h, --help — displays a summary of the command-line options and then exits. the classic. the icon. the "help me bestie" flag 🫶
• -j, --jitter — enables sample jittering. shake things up a little, literally ✨
• -m, --multisample multisample — turns on antialiased rendering. this value is the size of the sub-pixel sampling grid, so 1 gives you the default one-sample-per-pixel behaviour, while 4 gives you 16 samples per pixel on a 4x4 grid. and unlike the main evolvotron application, there is no upper limit here — but of course rendering time increases as the square of this number 😭 so like. go off, but know what you're doing, the math is mathing and it's mathing against your free time
• -o, --output imagefile.[ppm|png] — this option is just an alternative to specifying the output filename as a positional argument. same energy, different slot 💖
• -s, --size widthxheight — specifies the resolution of the output image. defaults to 512x512 if you don't say anything. she's not gonna guess, she's gonna give you the default 🎀
• -v, --verbose — verbose mode! super useful for monitoring the progress of large renders, so you're not just staring at a silent terminal wondering if she's alive. she is. she's working. let her cook 👑

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

the pipe moment. the collab. mutation straight into rendering:

evolvotron_mutate -g | evolvotron_render -s 1024x1024 function.ppm

note the 1024x1024 there — that's you overriding the default size with -s. big image, big feelings, big render time 💀

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

evolvotron_render was written by Tim Day (www.timday.com) and is released under the conditions of the GNU General Public License. see the file LICENSE supplied with the source code for the details. respect the license bestie, it's legally binding and also just polite 🫶

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🍓 SEE ALSO 🍓

• evolvotron(1)
• evolvotron_mutate(1)

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and that's the page!! ✨ this one's from www.timday.com, dated 16 Oct 2009, and you just read EVOLVOTRON_RENDER(1) — go make something pretty, ily, bye 💖🧚🌸