starfish - radially-symmetric throbbing colormap-hacking graphics demo

starfish [-display host:display.screen] [-foreground color] [-background color] [-window] [-root] [-mono] [-install] [-visual visual] [-delay usecs] [-delay2 secs] [-cycle-delay2 usecs] [-thickness pixels] [-rotation degrees] [-duration seconds] [-colors int] [-cycle] [-no-cycle] [-blob] [-no-blob]

The starfish program draws radially symmetric objects, which expand, contract, rotate, and turn inside out. It uses these shapes to lay down a field of smooth colors, and then rotates the colormap.

starfish accepts the following options:

-window

Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default.

-root

Draw on the root window.

-mono

If on a color display, pretend we're on a monochrome display.

-install

Install a private colormap for the window.

-visual visual

Specify which visual to use. Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual.

-delay microseconds

How much of a delay should be introduced between steps of the animation. Default 10000, or about 1/100th second.

-cycle-delay microseconds

How long to wait between shifting the colormap by one step. Default 100000, or about 1/10th second.

-thickness pixels

How wide each color band should be. Default 0, meaning random (the chosen value will be between 0 and 15.)

-rotation degrees

How quickly the objects should rotate at each step. Default 0, meaning random (the chosen value will be between 0 and 12 degrees.)

-colors int

How many colors to use. Default 200. The more colors, the smoother the transitions will be, and the nicer the resultant images.

-cycle

-no-cycle

Whether to do colormap cycling. Default true.

-duration seconds

How long to run before choosing a new shape. Default 30 seconds.

-delay2 seconds

When duration expires, how long to wait before starting a new run. Default 5 seconds.

-blob

-no-blob

If blob option is specified, then the raw shapes will be shown, instead of a field of colors generated from them.

DISPLAY

to get the default host and display number.

XENVIRONMENT

to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

X(1), xscreensaver(1)

Copyright © 1997 by Jamie Zawinski. Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 14-Jun-97.