Fractals (#125)

[bbazzarrakk]

The three rules of Ruby Q.:

1. Please do not post any solutions or spoiler discussion for this quiz
   until
   48 hours have passed from the time on this message.

2. Support Ruby Q. by submitting ideas as often as you can:

http://www.rubyquiz.com/

3. Enjoy!

Suggestion: A [QUIZ] in the subject of emails about the problem helps
everyone
on Ruby T. follow the discussion. Please reply to the original quiz
message,
if you can.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

by Drew O.

When I learned about fractals in high school math class, I immediately
found
them fascinating. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, the
definition
from Wikipedia is as follows: a fractal is “a rough or fragmented
geometric
shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least
approximately)
a reduced-size copy of the whole”.

At the end of the unit in which we were taught them, the fractal below
was a
test question. In subsequent years, I began drawing it freehand to
higher and
higher levels. The details and patterns that emerge are fascinating.

The goal is to create a ruby program which takes the level as an
argument and
then draws the fractal shown below to the specified level. The fractal
is
created by drawing the first level, then repeating the pattern such that
each
base piece is replaced with the fractal from the higher level. Thus, to
move
from level 1 to level 2, we replace each line with the shape at level 1.
Notice
that the position changes as well, meaning if the line is vertical we
replace it
with a vertically positioned shape of level 1 (right and left facing
also
matter). I have shown the first 3 levels below (including the base
component at
level 0). Feel free to use the console for output or get fancy with
RMagick or
something similar.

                        _                  <-- Level 0
                        _
                      _| |_                <-- Level 1
                        _
                      _| |_
                    _|     |_              <-- Level 2
                  _|_       _|_
                _| |_|     |_| |_

                        _
                      _| |_
                    _|     |_
                  _|_       _|_
                _| |_|     |_| |_
              _|                 |_
            _|_                   _|_
          _| |_|                 |_| |_    <-- Level 3
        _|                             |_
      _|_                               _|_
    _| |_|_   _                   _   _|_| |_
  _|     |_|_|_|                 |_|_|_|     |_
_|_       _|_|_                   _|_|_       _|_

| || || || || || || |

[bbazzarrakk]

If you want to create an image to view instead of on the console,
RMagic/RScience may be convenient, but never forget how plain old easy
it is to make a PPM image
You just write it out as text! This may be the easiest way to create
an image file from any language.

The header is 4 lines long, the data is written as r g b color values

Header:
First line is “P3”
Second line is a comment line that starts with “#” and goes however long
Third line contains two integers with a space between them, they
represent the size of the image
Fourth line is the maximum any color channel can be for any pixel.
For instance 7 will mean any pixel can have a red value 0-7, green
value of 0-7 and a blue value of 0-7. If you use 255 you’re getting 8
bits of color per channel, which is what were used to now days.

The data itself:
Everything now is just an integer, separated by a \n or a space.
Every triplet of integers represents a pixel, with each integer in the
triplet representing a different channel: Red, Green, Blue.
The triplets are written in order, with no particular formatting, no
indication that a new line is starting, and no indication that the
file or data has ended. You just write them out, and it’s up to the
viewer to read the header and know when the new line is, how many
integers to read, etc.
(There is a max length for any given line, and I don’t remember what
it is, so be on the safe side and put in a \n after each pixel)

So this is a valid image file (1x3 pixels, one red one green one blue!)

P3

comment line

1 3
255
255 0 0
0 255 0
0 0 255

Hope this helps some of you who want to write images, but don’t want
to use a library (for some reason or another), or just don’t want to
use something they don’t understand.

–Kyle

PS:
http://netpbm.sourceforge.net has more info than I possibly can, and
probably describes it better, but longer.

[bbazzarrakk]

ACK!
“which is what were used to now days.”
Sorry
Please read that as
“which is what we’re used to now days.”

[bbazzarrakk]

On May 25, 2007, at 8:44 AM, Kyle S. wrote:

If you want to create an image to view instead of on the console,
RMagic/RScience may be convenient, but never forget how plain old easy
it is to make a PPM image

I wrote pretty much the same thing in my summary to this previous quiz:

http://www.rubyquiz.com/quiz117.html

I used a more compact PPM format though.

James Edward G. II

[bbazzarrakk]

Wrote it as binary?

Yea I guess that is quite a bit more compact

–Kyle

[bbazzarrakk]

On May 25, 2007, at 9:18 AM, Ruby Q. wrote:

geometric
The goal is to create a ruby program which takes the level as an
we replace it
| | <-- Level 1
| || || |
| |
| |
| || || | <-- Level 3
| |
| |
| ||_ _ _ || |_
| |||| |||| |
| ||_ ||_ |
| || || || || || || |

I’m confused about the intent of this quiz. Is the main focus writing
code that will re-create the ASCII art shown above, or is it just to
draw the required fractal by any means of the solver’s choice (for
example, using the turtle geometry classes developed in Quiz 104)? If
the latter is permitted, a simple, recursive turtle program will do
the job.

Regards, Morton

[bbazzarrakk]

On May 25, 2007, at 6:53 PM, Morton G. wrote:

I’m confused about the intent of this quiz. Is the main focus
writing code that will re-create the ASCII art shown above, or is
it just to draw the required fractal by any means of the solver’s
choice (for example, using the turtle geometry classes developed in
Quiz 104)? If the latter is permitted, a simple, recursive turtle
program will do the job.

You guys should know by now that I’m pretty light on rules.
Officially, the “intent of this quiz” is to learn something and/or
have some fun.

I say, if you can solve it simply with turtle graphics, show us. I
doubt everyone will try that so it certainly has a unique edge.

James Edward G. II

[bbazzarrakk]

On May 26, 2007, at 1:02 PM, Morton G. wrote:

solution. I suspect he thinks providing ASCII output is an integral
part of his quiz. I seek clarification because I think the quiz
author’s point of view should be respected.

Well, he did invite graphic solutions in the quiz description…

James Edward G. II

[bbazzarrakk]

On May 25, 2007, at 11:58 PM, James Edward G. II wrote:

Officially, the “intent of this quiz” is to learn something and/or
have some fun.

I say, if you can solve it simply with turtle graphics, show us. I
doubt everyone will try that so it certainly has a unique edge.

James, given the way the quiz is currently formulated, I do realize
you would never dump on a turtle graphics solution. However, I
wonder whether or not the quiz author would welcome such a solution.
I suspect he thinks providing ASCII output is an integral part of his
quiz. I seek clarification because I think the quiz author’s point of
view should be respected.

Regards, Morton

[bbazzarrakk]

On May 26, 2007, at 3:02 PM, James Edward G. II wrote:

Well, he did invite graphic solutions in the quiz description…

I just re-read the quiz description and the sentence

Feel free to use the console for output or get fancy with RMagick or
something similar.

got my attention this time around. My eyes must have slipped over it
the first time. Maybe because RMagick didn’t mean anything to me.
But, given your comment and after a Google search on RMagick, I agree
that a turtle graphics solution would probably be welcomed by the
quiz author. Mine is up and running – took less than ten minutes –
and I will submit it after the non-spoiler period expires. I attach
its level 4 output.

Regards, Morton

[bbazzarrakk]

Morton G. wrote:

On May 25, 2007, at 11:58 PM, James Edward G. II wrote:

Officially, the “intent of this quiz” is to learn something and/or
have some fun.

I say, if you can solve it simply with turtle graphics, show us. I
doubt everyone will try that so it certainly has a unique edge.

James, given the way the quiz is currently formulated, I do realize
you would never dump on a turtle graphics solution. However, I
wonder whether or not the quiz author would welcome such a solution.
I suspect he thinks providing ASCII output is an integral part of his
quiz. I seek clarification because I think the quiz author’s point of
view should be respected.

Regards, Morton

Morton -

I’m with James here. The spirit of the quiz is the display the output in
any way you see fit. I wrote the quiz based on ASCII output as it would
allow those who didn’t want to use any external libraries or tools the
opportunity to participate. I wrote my solution based on the ASCII, but
I would be excited to see you solve it using the turtle solution. In
short, I say use whatever tool you feel provides the best solution!

• Drew

[bbazzarrakk]

My solution uses a simple recursive method to build a turtle-graphics
string
for the fractal. I use three commands:

F: move forward one unit
L: turn left, but do not move
R: turn right, but do not move

So level 1 can be represented by “FLFRFRFLF”. I thought of doing it more
compactly and letting L & R imply a move, so that level 1 would be
“FLRRL”, but that made some of my code more complex, so I stuck with the
verbose way.

My code (in fractals.rb) can accept different level-0 and level-1 turtle
strings, so it can be used to build other fractals besides the one in
the
quiz. The basic algorithm I use is:

For every char in level-1:
If the char is the level-0 char, insert level-n-1, else insert the
char

This is a bit different than:

For every level-n-1 in self, insert self

But it seems to be equivalent. So the turtle-string-building code is
pretty
short. Most of my code is for converting that string into different
output
formats. These include the turtle string itself, text like that in the
original quiz email (turtle_text.rb), displayed on the screen using
RMagick
(non-Windows only, if I remember the docs correctly), and any graphic
format
that RMagick can write (turtle_draw.rb and turtle_image.rb).

Here’s some examples:

$ ./fractals.rb 2
_
| |
| |
| |
| || || |

$ ./fractals.rb 3 -format display # fractal display with ImageMagick

$ ./fractals.rb 3 -format png
Wrote level-3 fractal to fractal_F_FLFRFRFLF_3.png

$ ./fractals.rb 3 -l1 FLFFRF # alternate level-1 rule
_
|
|
| _
|
|_ _
| _ _
| | | _ | |_ _
| _ | | _ | |
| _ | | _ | |
|| || |
| _
|
|_ _
_|
|
_|

(See the comment at the top of fractals.rb for the full usage.)

The RMagick stuff went pretty well, but the one thing that annoyed me
was that
setting Draw’s affine transformation matrix does not affect previous
drawing
calls like line(). So I have to trace over the entire fractal once
beforehand
just to get the size of it to set up the affine.

Also, for my TurtleText.textize method, I wanted to be able to use
Turtle.each_coord, and convert graphics coords to text coords. I
couldn’t find
a nice way to do that, though. For example, here are the widths and
heights of
some fractals using graphics and text:

Turtle Wg Wt Hg Ht
F 1 1 0 1
LF 0 1 1 1

So Wt (text width) can’t be calculated using only Wg, and neither for Ht
and
Hg. This led to some kind-of duplication of code spirit, rather than
letter,
in textize() and each_coord(). I think that, for the fractal in the
quiz,
the widths and heights for level L are:

Wt: 2*3L - 1
Ht: (3L / 2).ceil
Wg: 3L
Hg: (3L / 2).floor

Though since I wanted to be general for other fractals, I couldn’t use
these.

It was fun to play around with different base strings, and see the
resulting
image. Here’s a few interesting ones I found (you can infer the rules
from the
filenames):

http://www.jessemerriman.com/images/ruby_quiz/125_fractals/fractal_F_FFL_10.png
http://www.jessemerriman.com/images/ruby_quiz/125_fractals/fractal_F_FLFRF_6.png
http://www.jessemerriman.com/images/ruby_quiz/125_fractals/fractal_F_RFRFF_8.png
http://www.jessemerriman.com/images/ruby_quiz/125_fractals/fractal_F_FLFLFR_10.png
http://www.jessemerriman.com/images/ruby_quiz/125_fractals/fractal_F_LFFFRFLFLF_4.png
http://www.jessemerriman.com/images/ruby_quiz/125_fractals/fractal_F_RFRFLFF_6.png
http://www.jessemerriman.com/images/ruby_quiz/125_fractals/fractal_F_FLFRFRFLF_4.png
http://www.jessemerriman.com/images/ruby_quiz/125_fractals/fractal_F_LFFF_6.png

[bbazzarrakk]

On 2007-05-25 22:18:32 +0900 (Fri, May), Ruby Q. wrote:

                        _                  <-- Level 0
                        _
                      _| |_                <-- Level 1
                        _
                      _| |_
                    _|     |_              <-- Level 2
                  _|_       _|_
                _| |_|     |_| |_

#!/usr/bin/ruby -w

The Fractal objects are a sequence of steps to draw

an image. In Logo the drawing would be extremely easy.

class Fractal
attr_reader :path

+level+ may be 0 or greater, and should be something like an

integer.

+seq+ is an array with a sequence of steps (:fw, :right, or :left)

which

will replace each :fw (means: forward) part of the path.

A nice default is provided.

def initialize level = 1, seq = nil
super()
@path = [:fw]
seq = [:fw, :left, :fw, :right, :fw, :right, :fw, :left, :fw]
level.times do
@path.map! { |el| el == :fw ? seq.dup : el }.flatten!
end
end
end

AsciiArtCanvas draws a given Fractal.path on an array of strings.

class AsciiArtCanvas

def initialize path, initial_dir = :e
@path = path
@dir = initial_dir
@canvas = Hash.new { |h,k| h[k] = Hash.new { |h2,k2| h2[k2] = ’ ’ }}
@x = @y = @min_x = @min_y = @max_x = @max_y = 0
end

def paint
@path.each { |step| step == :fw ? draw : turn(step) }
(@min_y…@max_y).inject([]) do |arr,y|
arr << (@min_x…@max_x).inject(’’) do |row,x|
row + @canvas[x][y]
end
end
end

private
def draw
case @dir
when :n; @y -= 1
when :s; @y += 1
when :e; @x += 1
when :w; @x -= 1
end

  @canvas[@x][@y] = case @canvas[@x][@y]
                    when '+'; '+'
                    when '-'; [:n,:s].include?( @dir ) ? '+' : '-'
                    when '|'; [:w,:e].include?( @dir ) ? '+' : '|'
                    else      [:n,:s].include?( @dir ) ? '|' : '-'
                    end
  case @dir
  when :n;  @y -= 1; @min_y = @y if @y < @min_y
  when :s;  @y += 1; @max_y = @y if @y > @max_y
  when :e;  @x += 1; @max_x = @x if @x > @max_x
  when :w;  @x -= 1; @min_x = @x if @x < @min_x
  end
end

TURNS = {
  :n => { :left => :w, :right => :e },
  :w => { :left => :s, :right => :n },
  :s => { :left => :e, :right => :w },
  :e => { :left => :n, :right => :s },
}
def turn dir
  @dir = TURNS[@dir][dir]
end

end

if FILE == $0
level = ARGV[0] ? ARGV[0].to_i.abs : 3

t = Fractal.new level
puts( *AsciiArtCanvas.new(t.path, :e).paint )
end

It’s terribly inefficient for high levels:

$ time ./fract.rb 4
[…]
real 0m0.297s

for level 4: 0.297s
for level 5: 1.917s
for level 6: 37.449s
I’m too scared to run it with level 7

[bbazzarrakk]

On Fri, 25 May 2007 22:18:32 +0900, Ruby Q. wrote:

Suggestion: A [QUIZ] in the subject of emails about the problem helps
everyone on Ruby T. follow the discussion. Please reply to the
original quiz message, if you can.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
=-=-=-=-=
was a test question. In subsequent years, I began drawing it freehand to
positioned shape of level 1 (right and left facing also matter). I have
| |
| |
| |
| ||_ _ _ || |_
| |||| |||| |
| ||_ ||_ |
| || || || || || || |

#this is my second solution. it builds on my first solution
#but reimplements the turtle graphics in ASCII art.
class Fractal
#rotate the turtle 90 degrees to the :left or the :right
def rotate whichway
#lots of special cases to deal with the nature of the
#characters used.
case [@direction,whichway]
when [:left,:left],[:right,:right]
@y+=1
@direction=:down
when [:right,:left],[:left,:right]
@direction=:up
when [:down,:right]
@x-=1
@y-=1
@direction=:left
when [:up,:left]
@x-=1
@direction=:left
when [:up,:right]
@x+=1
@direction=:right
when [:down,:left]
@x+=1
@y-=1
@direction=:right
end
self
end

#creates a blank canvas of the specified size, with the turtle in the
#lower left corner, facing right
def initialize width=80,height=24
@x=0
@y=height-1
@direction=:right
@matrix=Array.new(height){Array.new(width){" "}}
end

#move the turtle forward
def forward
case @direction
when :left
@matrix[@y][@x]=""
@x-=1
when :right
@matrix[@y][@x]=""
@x+=1
when :up
@matrix[@y][@x]="|"
@y-=1
when :down
@matrix[@y][@x]="|"
@y+=1
end
self
end

#draw a segment of the fractal
def segment depth
if depth==0
forward
else
segment depth-1
rotate :left
segment depth-1
rotate :right
segment depth-1
rotate :right
segment depth-1
rotate :left
segment depth-1
end
self
end

#convert the matrix to a string suitable for printing
def to_s
@matrix.map{|row| row.join}.join("\n")
end
end

puts Fractal.new.segment(3)

[bbazzarrakk]

Here is my solution to Quiz 125.

Since the required fractal is a recursive turtle path, the Turtle
Geometry kit developed for Quiz 104 can be used to provide a short
and simple solution to this quiz.

# Created by Morton G. on May 26, 2007. # quiz_125_fractal.rb

def fractal(n, s)
if n == 0
forward s
else
fractal(n-1, s/3.0)
left 90
fractal(n-1, s/3.0)
right 90
fractal(n-1, s/3.0)
right 90
fractal(n-1, s/3.0)
left 90
fractal(n-1, s/3.0)
end
end

USAGE = <<MSG
Usage: turtle_viewer.rb quiz_125_fractal.rb [level]
\twhere level is a single digit integer
\trecommend level be less than 6
MSG

n = case ARGV[0]
when nil then 3 # show level 3 if no argument given
when /^\d$/ then ARGV[0].to_i
else
puts USAGE
exit
end
go [-190, -100]
right 90
pen_down
fractal(n, 380)

The turtle_viewer.rb script, also developed for Quiz 104 can run the
above turtle program and produce the desired graphic output. But
there is a problem. The turtle program wants a command line parameter
and turtle_viewer.rb, without modification, doesn’t make provision
for this. Not to worry – changing one line in turtle_viewer.rb fixes
it up.

#! /usr/bin/env ruby -w # Created by Morton G. on November 02, 2006. # Modified on November 17, 2006 # Modified on May 26, 2007 # turtle_viewer.rb

ROOT_DIR = File.dirname(FILE)
$LOAD_PATH << File.join(ROOT_DIR, “lib”)

require ‘tk’
require ‘turtle_view’
require ‘turtle’

A simple Ruby/Tk script for viewing turtle graphics.

If a file path is supplied as the first command line argument, the

file is taken as the source for the turtle program to be run. If no

argument is given, a default turtle program (CIRCLE_DESIGN – see

below) is run.

class TurtleViewer
def initialize(code)
@code = code
# Create and lay out the viewer. Its only widget is a canvas.
root = TkRoot.new {
bg “DodgerBlue2”
title “Turtle Graphics Viewer”
}
@canvas = TkCanvas.new(root) {
relief :solid
borderwidth 1
}
@canvas.pack(:fill=>:both, :expand=>true, :padx=>20, :pady=>20)
# Run turtle commands when the canvas is mapped by Tk.
@canvas.bind(‘Map’) { run_code }
# Set the window geometry; i.e., size and placement.
win_w, win_h = 440, 440
win_x = (root.winfo_screenwidth - win_w) / 2
root.geometry("#{win_w}x#{win_h}+#{win_x}+50")
root.resizable(false, false)
# Make Cmnd+Q work as expected on Moc OS X.
root.bind(‘Command-q’) { Tk.root.destroy }
end

def run_code
   turtle = Turtle.new
   view = TurtleView.new(turtle, @canvas)
   view.handle_map_event(TkWinfo.width(@canvas),
                         TkWinfo.height(@canvas))
   turtle.run(@code)
   view.draw
end

end

Commands to be run if no command line argument is given.

CIRCLE_DESIGN = <<CODE
def circle
pd; 90.times { fd 6; rt 4 }; pu
end
18.times { circle; rt 20 }
CODE

if ARGV.size > 0
code = open(ARGV.shift) { |f| f.read } # **** modified ****
else
code = CIRCLE_DESIGN
end
TurtleViewer.new(code)
Tk.mainloop

Regards, Morton

[bbazzarrakk]

Hi,
here is my solution. The fractal-part is straight forward, the ascii-art
was harder.

thanks,
Philip

---

#!/usr/bin/ruby -w

class Fractal

def initialize n
@steps={:up =>[:up, :left, :up, :right, :up],
:down=>[:down, :right, :down, :left, :down],
:left=>[:left, :down, :left, :up, :left],
:right=>[:right, :up, :right, :down, :right] }
@n=n
@moves=(0…n).to_a.inject([]) {|result, ignore| one_step(result) }
end

def to_s
x=0
y=0

width = 3 ** @n
height= (1+width)/2
screen= (1.. height).collect { " " *(2* width-1) }

@moves.each {|item|
  case item
    when :up
      y+=1
      (screen[y-1])[x-1]="|"
    when :down
      y-=1
      (screen[y])[x-1]="|"
    when :left
      x-=2
      (screen[y])[x]="_"
    when :right
      x+=2
      (screen[y])[x-2]="_"
  end
}
screen.reverse.join("\n")

end

private

def one_step x
x.empty? ? [:right] : (x.collect {|item| @steps[item] }).flatten
end

end

n=ARGV[0].to_i

if (ARGV.length < 1 || n<0)
puts “Usage: quizz_125.rb level”
puts “-> level: non-negative integer”
else
puts Fractal.new(n)
end

[bbazzarrakk]

On Fri, 25 May 2007 22:18:32 +0900, Ruby Q. wrote:

Suggestion: A [QUIZ] in the subject of emails about the problem helps
everyone on Ruby T. follow the discussion. Please reply to the
original quiz message, if you can.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
=-=-=-=-=
was a test question. In subsequent years, I began drawing it freehand to
positioned shape of level 1 (right and left facing also matter). I have
| |
| |
| |
| ||_ _ _ || |_
| |||| |||| |
| ||_ ||_ |
| || || || || || || |

#this is my first solution
#a turtle graphics file for use with any solution to Quiz 104

#shows the whole fractal for 0<=DEPTH<=4
#shows part of the fractal for 5<=DEPTH

DEPTH=(ARGV[1] or 3).to_i

def segment n
if n==0
fd [(360/(3**DEPTH)),3].max
else
segment n-1
lt 90
segment n-1
rt 90
segment n-1
rt 90
segment n-1
lt 90
segment n-1
end
end

#get into a sensible home position
bk 180
rt 90
bk 180
pd
#actually draw the fractal
segment DEPTH

[bbazzarrakk]

Here’s my solution. It’s a combination of iteration and recursion.
Drawing the fractal is itself iterative, but the rotate method is
recursive. The -f option writes output to a file rather than the
console. My program displays the output in simple ASCII and I did not
use the turtle graphics approach.

file: fractal.rb

author: Drew O.

Fractal class holds our fractal representation

class Fractal
def initialize level
raise ArgumentError if level<0
@fractal = build_fractal level
end

to print the fractal, we flip the array (to print with base of the

triangle on the bottom), format the fields so we get a space for

nils

in the array, and join all the array rows together with new lines

def to_s
@fractal.reverse.map do |row|
row.map{|char| “%1s” % char}.join("")
end.join("\n")
end

private

the height of the fractal can be calculated using the sum

below

def get_height level
(1…level).inject(1){|sum,i| sum+3**(i-1)}
end

this method tells us which direction to turn after drawing

character i. if i%5 is 0…3, we make our standard move, dictated

by the shape of the fractal, every time. if i%5 is 4, we make a

move that is resursively defined by the fractal, hence we recal

get_dir after dividing i by 5.

cc - counter-clockwise

c - clockwise

def get_dir i
if i%5 == 4
get_dir(i/5)
elsif i%5 == 0 || i%5 == 3
:cc
elsif i%5 == 1 || i%5 == 2
:c
end
end

here we define the direction that results when rotating

from the current direction either clockwise or counter-clockwise

def rotate heading,dir
if heading == :n
dir == :cc ? :w : :e
elsif heading == :s
dir == :cc ? :e : :w
elsif heading == :e
dir == :cc ? :n : :s
elsif heading == :w
dir == :cc ? :s : :n
end
end

builds the fractal, given a level

def build_fractal level
# initialize heading and coordinates
heading = :e
x,y = 0,0

# build a 2D array initialized to the correct height. i represents 

the
# index of the current character we are drawing.
(0…5**level).inject(Array.new(get_height(level)){[]}) do
|fractal,i|
# store character in array based on heading, then update
# x y coordinates
if heading == :n
fractal[y][x] = “|”
x += 1
y += 1
elsif heading == :s
y -= 1
fractal[y][x] = “|”
x += 1
elsif heading == :e
fractal[y][x] = “"
x += 1
elsif heading == :w
x -= 2
fractal[y][x] = "”
x -= 1
end
# determine new heading
heading = rotate(heading,get_dir(i))
fractal
end
end
end

handles IO. the -f flag takes a file name and writes the

output to a file. if the flag is excluded, the output is

printed to the console

Usage:

ruby fractal.rb 3 -> prints level 3 fractal to the console

ruby fractal.rb 6 -f level6.txt -> prints level 6 fractal to file

if FILE == $0
if ARGV[1] == “-f”
file_name = ARGV[2]
File.open(file_name,“w”) do |out|
Fractal.new(ARGV[0].to_i).to_s.each do |line|
out << line
end
end
else
puts Fractal.new(ARGV[0].to_i)
end
end

[bbazzarrakk]

I’ve gone for short but un-ruby-esque solution. Outputs an image in .pbm
format to stdout.

Regards,
Raf

$ cat rq125_fractals_rafc.rb
#!/usr/bin/ruby -w

0: North

1: East

2: South

3: West

#Transformation: the sequence of segments that a
#segment going North is transformed into:
t = [ 0, 3, 0, 1, 0]

#Starting situation: one segment going East:
f = [ 1]

#Build the fractal:
ARGV[0].to_i.times{ f = f.map{ |g| t.map{ |u| ( g + u) % 4}}.flatten}

#Draw the result:

dx = [ 0, 1, 0, -1]
dy = [ 1, 0, -1, 0]

#Determine dimension of drawing:
x = 0
y = 0
minx = 0
miny = 0
maxx = 0
maxy = 0
f.each do |g|
x += dx[g]
y += dy[g]
minx = [x, minx].min
miny = [y, miny].min
maxx = [x, maxx].max
maxy = [y, maxy].max
end

dimx = (maxx - minx) * 2 + 3
dimy = (maxy - miny) * 2 + 3

drawing = Array.new( dimy) { Array.new( dimx, 0)}

#Draw:
x = -minx * 2 + 1
y = -miny * 2 + 1

drawing[y][x] = 1

f.each{ |g|
2.times {
x += dx[g]
y += dy[g]
drawing[y][x] = 1
}
}

#Output PBM:
puts ‘P1’
puts “#{dimx} #{dimy}”
drawing.reverse_each { |row| puts row.join( ’ ')}
END

$ #Usage:
$ ./rq125_fractals_rafc.rb 5 > f5.pbm

[bbazzarrakk]

My solution is pastied and attached:

http://pastie.caboo.se/65680

I opted to render to the browser using the Safari/Firefox canvas object.
IE folks are out of luck as I didn’t bother to include the javascript
canvas implementation.

• donald

Ruby Q. 125

Donald B.

version 1.0

DIRECTIONS = [:east, :south, :west, :north]

def instructions(level=1, list=[:forward])
if level == 1
list
else
instructions(level-1, list.map do |item|
case item
when :forward
[:forward, :left, :forward, :right, :forward, :right,
:forward, :left, :forward]
else item
end
end.flatten)
end
end

def plot(instructions)
p = [0, 0]
points = [p]
direction = :east
instructions.each do |item|
case item
when :forward
p = p.dup
case direction
when :east: p[0] += 1
when :south: p[1] -= 1
when :west: p[0] -= 1
when :north: p[1] += 1
end
points << p
when :left: direction = DIRECTIONS[(DIRECTIONS.index(direction) -

1. % 4]
   when :right: direction = DIRECTIONS[(DIRECTIONS.index(direction) +
2. % 4]
   end
   end
   points
   end

def to_html(points, width=600, height=400)
length = [width/points.map {|p| p[0]}.max, height/points.map {|p|
p[1]}.max].min
points.map! {|p| p.map {|x| x*length}}
s = ‘’
s << “\n”
s << “”
s << “”
s << “”
s << “”
s
end

if $0 == FILE
puts to_html(plot(instructions(ARGV[0].to_i))) if ARGV.length == 1
end