To Brian and others who are wondering what on earth DigiDaub is about. I rather stupidly thought that forum members would already know about DidiDaub as it was introduced on this forum a little while ago, but I forgot that there would be people who have more recently joined up. My apologies to all concerned. The following is taken from the notes included with the DigiDaub7 distribution: "DigiDaub7 is a Windowsgraphics application with which you can create abstract-style textures,backgrounds, wallpaper, art or eye-candy. It is both half serious and half fun.Some of it's features, especially in the 'Effects' and 'Texture' sections are not meant to be a replacement for dedicated softwares that specialize in effects and textures, but are included as an adjunct to making abstract art. Likewise,the possibility of loading external images means that you can include somerealism with you abstract art. There is a small selection of Canvas sizes, including the largest proportionalinternational A-size that will fit on your screen in both landscape and portrait orientations. You can't actively draw or paint - just let the computer do it for you. There are over 300 design elements in the menus. You can select the element you wish to use, but you are then at the mercy of the computer; it has been programmed to make various random adjustments to the element you use. There is a tremendous amount of randomness built in to DigiDaub 7 and the odds of ever being able to repeat an original design are just about impossible. Serendipity is a big feature ofDigiDaub 7. DigiDaub7 can also build up an abstract image for you with one menu choice - just like that! Depending on which automated process you select, the computer saves a series of images on disk for you to browse through later. DigiDaub 7 includes a browsing function. The idea is for you to embark on a voyage of discovery with DigiDaub 7 and find out what each feature does However. included in the distribution is gallery of images showing examples of the design elements and effects available. Installing DigiDaub 7 A screensize of at least 1024 x 768 is recommended. Unzip theDigiDaub7.zip file into a new folder of your choice. Please make sure that all unzipped files are kept in the same folder. A goodway to see DigiDaub 7 in action is to select Go once from the Auto menu. DigiDaub 7 will use a selection from most of the available image tools to paint a design for you. Note that not all items on every menu are included." So howhow does DigiDaub work? First of all there is a restricted number of Canvases to choose from. All graphics are, naturally, restricted to the Canvas size. The choice of colours then needs to be considered. When DigiDaub first starts it creates a sequence of graded colours, a palette, from which colours are chosen by the program. Methods of computer-generated palettes are provided, some predefined palettes are also provided, and a singlekey-press will generate a new random palette. Palettes can be saved and reloaded. Menus provide access to a number of design features; textures, regular textures, geometric and organic shapes and effects. Almost every one of these feature sinclude a random element, either of colour, shape, or position. The real generative feature is the ability of DigiDaub to create a stream of images, each building on the previous one, which are entirely random. Images are madeup from most of the elements available via the menus, but there is a selectionof more restricted-choice elements to render energy field, organic or geometric images. A roundel feature is also available which generates circular designs. A new feature in DigiDaub 7 is the addition of randomly chosen text in randomly chosen styles using your computer's native fonts. A file of text material is provided, but you can load your own selection of words or phrases from a textfile. You can copy an image from the canvas, then include it in a new canvas in various ways; blended at three strengths, reveal parts of the copied image or have parts ofthe image show through. You can import your own images for further processing by adding design features to it.You can also blend or overlay an imported image with the current canvas so as to incorporate a photo for example in the canvas. A touch of realism can be incorporated in your abstract image in this way. Any images you make can be saved either as .bpm files or one of three levels of .jpg file. DigidDaub is under frequent revision and further enhancements are planned for the convenience of the user. I hope this helps, David P
