visprint(1)

NAME

visprint- Fractal fingerprint generator.

SYNTAX

md5sum foo.bar | visprint [Options] > foo.png

DESCRIPTION

Visprint makes cool fractal fingerprint png images based on the contents of any file. The image will be different for almost every file with even slightly different contents. Visprint uses the IFS fractal generation process, pioneered by Michael Barnsley. It is a way to create images which are self-similar to infinite depths. In other words, the picture is made up of smaller versions of itself. Visprint takes an MD5 checksum as its input. This is basically a 32-byte number which is generated from a file. In order to generate the checksum, you will also need the md5sum command. The original code was written by Ian Goldberg, based on an idea by Hal Finney, in a post to the coderpunks mailing list. The most excellent color enhancements were added by Raph Levien. David Johnston made a port for Win95 console mode and added a bunch of nice features. Soren Andersen developed the png and transparency code. Goizeder Ruiz de Gopegui, the current maintainer, cleaned the code, created the documentation and put everything together.

OPTIONS

-b(0-255)
    Use the given background brightness. 0 means black, 255 means white. You can try other values, but the resultant image will be quite ugly. The default is 0 (black).

-c  Use the alternate coloring method.

-g  Create a black-and-white image. No greys or colors will be used if you use this option.

-i(1-lots)
    Use the given intensity of color. With a black background, a higher intensity produces a brighter image. With a white background, higher intensity produces a darker image. In all cases, calculation time doubles every time you double the intensity. The default is 30.

-r(1-1000)
    Use the given value for both the x and y resolutions. The calculation time will quadruple every time you double this value. The default is 300.

-t  Create the image with a transparent background.

-v  Output version information and exit.

-?, -h, --help
    Output help information and exit.

EXAMPLES

To create a nice 500x500 fingerprint of your kernel type:

md5sum /boot/mykernel | visprint -r500 > mykernel.png

Let's say that you want a 100x100 fingerprint of your website's index file, with png transparency that looks good on a white background:

md5sum index.html | visprint -r100 -b255 -t > index.png

AUTHORS

Current Maintainer:
    Goizeder Ruiz de Gopegui http://wwwtastyrabbit.net

Previous Geniuses:
    Ian Golderg: http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~iang/ Raph Leviev: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/ Hal Finney: http://www.rain.org/~hal/ David Johnston: http://www.cybercities.com/ston/ Soren Andersen: http://intrepid.perlmonk.org/

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2006 Goizeder Ruiz de Gopegui

This is free software.  You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO

md5sum(1)