Krystals 4.0

See also: Krystals 4.0 is a program which provides an environment in which to create krystals. It builds on the code and ideas in my previous (unpublished) krystals software. It is the first major program I wrote with Microsoft's Visual C# (2006).
The best way to learn any new language and/or programming environment is to solve a concrete problem, and this was the problem I chose. The result is a program which works (and which I use), but which has a few er... idiosyncrasies in its code. Instead of tinkering with these, it would be better to reprogram the whole thing again from scratch — but I can’t imagine getting round to that for some time...
The code library containing the more abstract classes (krystal, strand etc.) is however now part of Moritz, and is continuing to be developed and maintained. The most recent use of this library is in the development of Moritz’ shaped expansion and permutation nodes. Krystals 4.0 does not do permutation, even though pk was part of Krystals 3.0 when I published my first website in 1999
(see footnote 1 of A short introduction to krystals). For a detailed descrption of the concepts involved, see Krystal Permutation.

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Contents:

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XML Schema

The XML file formats and naming conventions for Krystals 4.0 are defined in the schema file krystals.xsd. These definitions are also used by Moritz.

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Definitions

Here are some more definitions, building on those in A short introduction to krystals.

• A krystal operator or simply operator is an obect (such as an expansion field or modulation array etc.) which can use one or more krystals to create a new one.
  
• An expander is a field containing input and output points, as described in the short introduction. I sometimes use the term ‘expansion field’, but this is a bit clumsy.
  An expander is an operator.
• A gamete is a set of input or output points in an expander. An expander has an input gamete and an output gamete.
• A planet is an input point or an output point which moves (wanders) while an expansion is being created. 

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File Names

The names of krystals and their operators are allocated automatically. Here is what they mean/contain:

A constant krystal file name has the form:
where:
For example: ck0(4).krys,  ck0(17).krys,  ck0(56).krys etc.

A line krystal file name has the form: where: For example: lk1(7)-12.krys,  lk1(12)-2.krys,  lk1(100)-1.krys

An expansion krystal file name has the form: where:
<fieldID>, which is also a component of the expansion field file name, is defined as follows: For example, some expansion krystal names are
xk3(7.7.1)-1.krys,  xk4(6.12.2)-1.krys,  xk5(7.7.1)-1.krys

A shaped expansion krystal file name has the same form as an expansion krystal file name, except that the first two characters are sk.
For example:
sk3(7.7.1)-1.krys,  sk4(7.12.4)-2.krys,  sk5(7.7.1)-10.krys

A modulation krystal file name has the form: where: For example: mk3(7)-5.krys,  mk3(256)-1.krys,  mk4(100)-1.krys

A permutation krystal file name has the same form as a Modulation krystal, except that the first two characters are pk.
For example: pk1(6)-2.krys,  pk3(92)-1.krys,  pk5(12)-10.krys

An expander or expansion field file name has the form: <fieldID> is defined as above, so examples of expansion field file names are:

The <fieldID> is used in both expansion krystal and expansion field names, by which one can see for example that the expansion field e(7.7.1).kexp was used to construct the krystal
xk5(7.7.1)-4.krys.
Both input and output points in expansion fields have contiguous, ascending values starting at 1, so the number of input points is the maximum domain of the input krystal, and the number of output points is the maximum domain of the output krystal. Thus the domain of an expansion krystal cannot exceed the middle value in the <fieldID>.

A modulator or modulation field file name has the form: where:
For example: m7x7(12)-3.kmod,  m12x12(12)-8.kmod,  m7x13(120)-2.kmod.

Note that even though not visible in their file names, all krystals contain heredity information which can be used to construct family trees. (See the schema file, and use of krystals in Moritz.)

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Krystals 4.0 Program

Here is Krystals 4.0’s (very makeshift) initial window:


The buttons access the different parts of the program:

• new constant krystal opens the Constant Krystal Editor.
• new line krystal opens the Line Krystal Editor.
  
• open expansion editor opens an empty expansion field editor - see Expansion Krystal Editor.
• open modulation editor opens the Modulation Krystal Editor.
• rebuild krystal family rebuilds the krystal family in the standard krystals folder. This means checking all heredity data and removing orphans. See Moritz.

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Constant Krystal Editor

This simple dialog creates a new constant krystal, with its automatically allocated name, in the standard krystals folder. This dialog can also be opened using Moritz' krystal nodes' context menus.

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Line Krystal Editor

This simple dialog creates a new line krystal, with its automatically allocated name, in the standard krystals folder. This dialog can also be opened using Moritz' krystal nodes' context menus.

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Expansion Krystal Editor

Planets

My previous krystals software only used expanders containing fixed points. Planets are implemented here for the first time, so I need to say something about how they work before going on to describe the editor.
The following diagram shows a simple planet which moves in a straight line from a point near an output focus to the centre of the field during the course of an expansion. (Such paths always begin next to the planet’s label.) (Compare this with the example of an organic expansion in the short introduction.) In this example, the density input is a simple line krystal [ lk1(7)-1.krys ] containing the 7 values (1,2,3,4,5,6,7), so there are 7 positions along the trajectory from which strands are expanded. Expanding this field [ e(1.7.1).kexp ] results in an output krystal containing seven strands: This is the level 2 output krystal xk2(1.7.1)-1.krys displayed on the left:



In Krystals 4.0:

• A planet’s path (or trajectory) may have any number of subpaths. In the simplest case, it only has one subpath, which is traversed during the whole expansion, as above.
• A subpath’s shape is limited by the editor to being either a circle, spiral or straight line.
• A subpath can contain one or more point positions: one point per strand in the output.
• Subject to planet positions being in sequence, the first point in a subpath can correspond to any value in the density input. (Each such value corresponds to an output strand.)
  

In the following example, planet 1 has two subpaths beginning at the 1st and 4th values in the same density input as above [ lk1(7)-1.krys ]. (This is expander e(1.7.2).kexp). The result of expanding this is the krystal xk2(1.7.2)-1.krys displayed on the left:


Note that subpaths have their own start and end points. They dont have to end where the next subpath begins - thats just the way I set up this example.

In general, the point positions along a subpath are calculated by dividing it hierarchically (and recursively) using the density input’s structure. For example, if a level 2 density input (here I'm using xk2(1.7.1)-1.krys above) is loaded for this last expander (e(1.7.2).kexp), the point positions are as in the following field diagram. The points are not part of the expander itself. Again, the resulting expansion [ xk3(1.7.2)-1.krys ] is displayed on the left:


An expander’s input gamete can have any domain, and can consist of any combination of fixed points and planets. In the following expander [ e(7.7.14).kexp ], the input gamete consists of two planets (1 and 2) and one group of fixed points (3,4,5,6,7). For this example, I have used the krystal [xk2(1.7.2)-1.krys] for both density (d) and points input (p) values, as can be seen in the output krystal [ xk3(7.7.14)-1.krys ] on the left. (The editor gave this expander the index 14, because I have 13 other expanders whose names begin with “7,7” in my database.)

The unused input planet points are coloured light blue. Note that fixed input point 7 is never used either. This is not an error, since the expander can be used with other input krystals as well. Currently, the editor issues a warning in this case. It should really colour all unused points light blue as well...

Both the input gamete and the output gamete can consist of any numbers of fixed point groups and planets. Here is an expander [ e(1.12.1).kexp ] consisting of one input planet and two groups of fixed output points. If you look inside e(1.12.1).kexp, you will see that it shares its output gamete with e(7.12.1).kexp. Here are the expander and expansion of xk3(1.12.1)-1.krys:

The Main Window

When an empty expansion editor opens, it looks like this:



At this point, the File menu can be used to create a completely new krystal or open an existing one.

File/New... opens a “new expansion” dialog:

File/Open krystal... loads an existing expansion krystal to be used as the basis for further editing.

The editor looks like this after loading xk3(7.7.1)-1.krys.
Note (Dec. 2009): An editor like this can be opened from Moritz by choosing "open expansion editor" from an expander node’s context menu.

There are five areas in this window

• Title bar (top): shows both the name of the output krystal and the name of its expander.
• Information strip (bottom):
  • Moments: the number of strands in the output krystal
  • density: the name of the density input krystal
  • input points: the name of the points input krystal
• Output krystal display (left): This area contains a hierarchic representation of the data contained in the output krystal. Each bracket pair contains a strand of values. The preceding three fields are
  • m: the moment (or strand) number
  • p: the value of the points input for this strand
  • d: the value of the density input for this strand
  At the left of the display are the strand’s hierarchic coordinates. These coordinates nest to a depth equal to the output krystal’s level.
• Expansion field (middle): input points are solid black dots, output points are small red circles. The colours can be changed in the control panel.
• Control panel (right): at the top of the control panel, there is a set of radio buttons which set the editor to a state in which it can change the type of points selected:
  • fixed input
  • fixed output
  • input planet
  • output planet
  Krystals 4.0 supports planets for the first time. See Planets. The above screenshot is of a krystal which has only fixed input and output points.

After loading a krystal, it is possible to change the input krystals, expander or gametes using commands in the File menu. Gametes are loaded from complete expanders. They are never stored separately.

Point groups and planets are added to, or deleted from, the current gamete using the Edit menu. The bottom four items in this menu duplicate the block of radio-buttons.

Here is the Control panel from xk3(7.7.1)-1 again: When editing fixed input groups, the top popup menu selects the particular group. Inside the Fixed Input Points area (which changes depending on the setting of the top radio-buttons and the Shape popup), The Shape popup offers a choice of shape for the point group Circle Spiral Straight Line Each of these affects the controls lower down.  Here, a fixed spiral input group is being edited. The Values input field sets the number of points in the group and their values. From Radius and From Angle set the starting point of the group (The large light blue circle in the field display has radius 1.0. Angles are given in degrees anticlockwise, beginning at 0.0 with a direction pointing right from the origin.). To Radius and To Angle set the end point of the group. Rotation rotates the group around the origin. Shift Radius and Shift Angle shift the group as a whole using a specified vector. These are followed by two controls which affect the group’s display Visible sets the visibility/invisibility of the group. This can be useful when trying to distinguish points. The Colour popup sets the display colour of the points in the group. (A sample is given in the field above.) The controls for Fixed Output Points are exactly the same (with different settings of course), except that the field containing the points preview contains four small circles. The Zoom popup sets the size of the expansion field in the display. The Expand button becomes available when an expanded krystal’s inputs have changed. The strands in the output krystal display in the left panel are also deleted at this time. The Save button becomes available when a krystal is expanded.

Here is the control panel as it looks while editing a straight line. (This is subpath 1 of planet 1 in xk3(1.7.2)-1.krys.)

And here is the control panel as it looks while editing a circular group. (This is fixed output group 2 in xk3(1.12.1)-1.krys containing the four output foci 3, 12, 9 and 6.)

Orientation

The following screenshot shows the editor immediately after loading the level 5 krystal xk5(7.12.5)-1.krys (this is a rather contrived example!). Note the hierarchic structure of the output krystal display, and the information in the bottom part of the window — this krystal has 246 moments (strands).

Each strand in the output krystal display corresponds to an input point in the expander.

The expander’s input gamete has domain 7, and consists of one group of 5 fixed points (1,2,3,4,5) and two planets (6 and 7). Input planet 6 has two subpaths, the first of which is a spiral inside the fixed output points (4,5,6). Input planet 7 has one subpath, which is a spiral inside the fixed output points (1,2,3).
The output gamete has domain 12, and consists of three groups of three fixed points ((1,2,3),(4,5,6) and (7,8,9)) and three planets (10,11,12). During the course of the expansion, output planet 10 converges on input point 5, output planet 11 converges on input point 4, and output planet 12 goes round output points (4,5,6) before converging on input point 2.


1. Right clicking on any point in an input or output planet trajectory opens an information window for the selected point, scrolls the output krystal display and highlights the related strand:

2. Clicking on a strand in the output krystal display shows the current position of all input and output points in the expander. The currently active input point is highlighted in solid blue, the other input points have an empty blue circle.

Shaped expansions

In earlier versions of this krystals software, the expansion operator (xk) also permuted the values in its output strands to give them a particular shape or ‘contour’ (see A short introduction to krystals). Krystals 4.0 does not do this, it leaves the expanded strands as they are, un-contoured.
Moritz now has the following nodes for contructing krystals:

• expansion node — creates simple, uncontoured (xk) expansions, as described above.
• permutation node — can permute any non-constant krystal at any of its levels. The output is a pk krystal.
• shaped expansion node — creates (sk) expansions permuted at the strand level, in the same way as xk in Krystals 3.0.
  sk krystals are simply xk krystals permuted at the strand level. For a description of krystal permutation, see Krystal Permutation.
  

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Modulation Krystal Editor

Editing a new modulation krystal begins at this dialog:


Loading an existing modulated krystal by pressing the top button fills in the Xinput, Yinput and Modulator fields from the loaded krystal’s internal heredity information:


The Xinput, Yinput and Modulator fields can be further edited using the Set... buttons to select different inputs. Note that the krystal inputs must belong to the same density family, but do not have to have the same level. Clicking the OK button checks the plausibility of the inputs before opening the modulation editor in which the values in the modulator can be changed:

• New goes back to the new modulation dialog.
• Open loads an existing modulated krystal.
• Close goes back to the Krystals 4.0 initial window.
• Modulate becomes active if any of the values in the modulator change. Clicking this button creates the new krystal (without saving it) and updates the display on the left. The values in brackets are the values in the krystal. Each bracket pair contains a strand. All other information in the left panel describes the shape of the krystal and the position of the values, strands etc.
• Save becomes active if the Modulate button has been pressed. Saves the new krystal and the new modulator, with automatically generated names, in their standard folders.