Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cica!iuvax!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!tank!uwvax!rennet.cs.wisc.edu!stuart
From: stuart@rennet.cs.wisc.edu (Stuart Friedberg)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: SigGraph Fractal Compression
Keywords: did anyone see this at siggraph?
Message-ID: <8129@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 9 Aug 89 17:14:39 GMT
References: <2037@netcom.UUCP> <444@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <601@berlioz.nsc.com>
Reply-To: stuart@rennet.cs.wisc.edu (Stuart Friedberg)
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 26

adam@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Adam Glass) writes:
> I saw it. People here were a bit skeptical about the thing, and the guy who
> made it was not interested in talking to people who knew about fractal
> compression, only those who would buy it. What a "suit."

andrew@berlioz (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) writes:
>Michael Barnsley, author of "Fractals Everywhere" has formed a company.
>If you read this book, you'll have no doubt about HIS integrity.

A few days ago, I browsed TWO of Barnsley &co's  books, and I am still very
dubious about all this.  There are lots of neat black and white graphics
illustrating maps and the "Collage Theorem", however
(1) The synthetic images are in most cases quite poor.
(2) The compressed/reconstructed images look like paintings, not like
    the original images.
(3) There is a noticeable dearth of hard mathematics, despite Theorems
    and Exercises out the wazoo.

I wouldn't go so far as to say IFS is touting a fraud, but neither
would I hesitate to say their enthusiasm exceeds the evidence made
public so far.  Note my hedge: it's *possible* they are protecting the
details of the underlying theory as a trade secret.  After two books
full of mediocre to reasonable images, and a foreward which says "Watch
for lots of papers we're going to publish", I have some doubts.

Stu Friedberg