Synthesist feature dev is DONE! I'm now in security review to make sure I don't release unsafe software. Have a look through the screenshot and you should get an idea of many of the new features coming in this release :)

From this post yesterday: https://www.reddit.com/r/ScaleSpace/comments/1tbo9mv/more_recent_finds_in_scale_space/

I'm gonna need some help identifying these... Any thoughts?

Scale Space Synthesist

What it is: A completely open source version of Scale Space designed to be extremely easy to build with. Tiny file sizes, simple structure, prebuilt tools to compile new builds on Windows, Linux or Mac. Use it in any software you like to visualize data or get extremely performant and realistic special effects in your game or experience.
When does it drop? This week.
What about Itch? Bioclast development continues as usual. A new version of Bioclast will drop shortly after Synthesist drops.
What else? A lot of new features come with Synthesist along with the new Bioclast build such as:

• External json save file instead of relying on local storage
• Draggable reorderable list of waypoints
• Random or sequential tour
• One new theme for both (theming system coming eventually)
• Basic working modulation functionality for parameters (so parameters can sweep back and forth at varying speeds)
• Toggle between hexagon and circle buttons for your radial menu
• Save a screenshot when you save a waypoint
• The return of the Entropy System (in basic form first)
• Improved panel layering
• CRT scanlines (you can control transparency)
• Bottom button bar bug fixes
• Lots of other bug fixes

Why not release it today? It's not ready yet. I am in the middle of a round of bug fixes and finishing touches on features. Call it the spit-shine pass. It's very close to delivery quality.

You're giving Scale Space away for free? I'm giving a version of it away for free so you and other developers can tinker with what's under the hood. The packaged versions I post to itch are designed to be all-in-one experiences that you can open and play. The open source version gives you the tools to customize every last thing about the software. If community members build improvements or addons to Synthesist, some of those may make their way into Bioclast and vice a versa. But these will be two separate dev tracks with the open source version being primarily in the hands of the open source community. I'll be very excited to see what people build, and they'll always be allowed to promote their creations on r/ScaleSpace.

What's next for Bioclast? I know I keep saying multiplayer, but this time for real I swear! Now that the whole structure of the codebase is rebuilt and very easy to change, building new features is going to be a lot easier. This means things like multiplayer will go a lot smoother. I was dealing with the equivalent of spaghetti code before but now we're looking at a polished sports car that will make extending it a piece of cake. Most of my work on multiplayer the past few weeks has been architecture as I figure out what I need to build now to prepare for that (such as save files which will be integral). So while it may seem like it's taking forever to get to multiplayer (sorry!), you're actually currently using a version of Bioclast that has some of the groundwork already laid and the next version even more so. So it's not an all or nothing kind of thing- more like build up to it then I can release the full thing.

Any other questions or comments- feel free to leave them below!

Github with demo: https://github.com/setzstone/Ramsey-Crystals

Will share images in the comments.

Summary

By applying a generalized Scale Space Theory to Ramsey numbers, we can treat each layer like a coarse graining and stack them to see the cross-scale structure. Looking at it from below (lowest number), the familiar Mandelbrot structure becomes visible.

Link to github: https://github.com/setzstone/Ramsey-Mandelbrot-Crystals

I would be interested to see if this approach might get the math community closer to solving notoriously difficult problems like Ramsey 5,5. Can we better find solutions to Ramsey numbers by looking at them through the lens of scale space theory?

How did I find this?

I'm a systems designer working on a generalized scale space theory, and I noticed that Ramsey graphs alternate between having a hole in the middle and a node. This to me seemed like periodicity, and that lead me to wonder- am I actually looking at a cross-scale structure? So I stacked up images of each of the possibility space Paley graphs 2-48 in photopea and to my shock, emergent shapes appeared that weren't in any of the individual slices. You can see my results here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ScaleSpace/comments/1r56y1n/i_have_discovered_that_ramsey_numbers_when/

This seemed like 'neat' territory but I couldn't figure out how to make it very useful. So I shelved it and worked on other things. Then recently, I had the thought- what if I stack them up in an interactive way? Would I see anything further? So I did- and again I was surprised- when viewing these stacks from the bottom, I saw the Mandelbrot set. There were also Romanesco broccoli fractals all around the crystals.

To my knowledge, this is a new discovery as I'm not aware of Ramsey numbers being looked at in a cross-scale way (but I'm happy to be corrected if it has). I'm very curious if the math community would find this as 'just something cool' or something that may legitimately help us better work out Ramsey solutions.

I'm a systems designer, not a researcher, so no paper will be forthcoming, but feel free to reach out to me directly if you are writing something and want to include this.

itch link: https://setzstone.itch.io/scale-space

Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5rAjOjTGtc

Hi, I hope this is appropriate for you guys.

Most of us are here to reclaim our focus, but the stakes are higher when kids are involved. I watched my 10-year-old become a "screen hunter" - waking up and scanning the house for a phone, tablet, computer, or remote just to check baseball scores.

A 5-minute check inevitably devolved into watching a bunch of YouTube junk, leaving him in what we call "screen withdrawal" - irritable and re-wired before the school bus even arrived.

I realized that if I wanted him to have an analog childhood, I had to provide an analog solution for his digital curiosities.

**The "Screamsheet" Solution**

I built a system that auto-prints a physical "newspaper" to our kitchen table every morning at 6:00 AM.

* **No Screens:** He gets his Phillies scores and standings on paper.

* **No Algorithms:** There is no "Up Next." When the page is read, it’s finished.

* **Invisible Tech:** A basement Linux box and AI do the heavy lifting so the family experience is entirely analog. You could probably use a Raspberry Pi or something similar.

I've documented the setup and the philosophy behind it in my article below. My hope is that more people recognize use LLMs to get rid of digital distractions and get power back over our own attention.

[edit: removed link from body]

Welcome back to another Scale Space Bioclast release! Here's what's changed:

New Features

• Hexagonal Radial Menus! Click anywhere on the screen:
  • Left click = Parameters (like Mass, Viscosity, Free Energy, etc.)
  • Right click = Visuals (such as color mode, strings, system opacity)
  • Middle mouse click = Config (such as panel opacity, backdrop and volume)
• Radial menu locking: Click the lock on a radial and it locks into place on the UI. This allows you to drop the radials anywhere to match your playstyle and comfort. All three radials can be locked on screen at the same time. If you try to open a locked radial, you won't be able to until you unlock it again. Locked radial position is saved between sessions.
• Hexagon button reordering: use middle mouse click + drag on hexagon buttons to reorder them within a given radial menu. These will also be saved between sessions.
• Hexagon sliders: Some hexagons work as sliders for their given parameters. Click and drag them up and down to control the parameter value. In a future release, you will also be able to use right click + drag to control the x axis of movement for modulation (and then holding both mouse buttons + drag moves on both x and y). You can try these out, but modulation is not yet implemented so it's purely visual.
• Hexagon toggles: Some hexagons function as toggles (like a light switch) where you can switch through 2 or more options (such as turning strings on/off or selecting a color mode).
• Hexagon buttons: Every hexagon is also a button. For sliders, clicking a hexagon will show you the current value of that parameter. For toggles, you will be able to see the currently selected option and the others you can select. For pure buttons like 'New Waypoint' - it works like a pure button.
• Panel control button bar: At the bottom of the screen, you'll notice a row of buttons corresponding to each draggable panel. Click any of these buttons to show or hide a given panel. The button bar is repositionable via drag (so is the logo at the top).
• Panels have gotten a visual redesign. No functionality change.
• Keyboard Shortcuts: (not all parameters have shortcuts yet)
  • Q/E = Energy
  • F/G = Temperature
  • Z/X = Resolution
  • V/B = Coherence
  • R/T = Equilibrium
  • I/O = Inversion
  • N/M = Scale Depth
  • J/K = Half Life
• Keyboard rotation with the arrow keys.
• Minimize button on panels fixed.
• Square and Diamond Quanta: In the particle shape section of the visuals panel.

Causmonaut Features that Will Return

• Music
• UI SFX
• Entropy System
• Bloom
• Wireframe modes

Roadmap

• Open Source Release on Github
  • This will be a version of Scale Space designed specifically for developers to make it easy to extend and build new tools with Scale Space! Development updates will continue to be released for people who bought it on Itch with certain features available only to itch buyers.
• Community multiplayer waypoint ledger (share your discoveries and visit those found by others!)
• Holographic Atlas
• Controller Support
• Onboarding
• Accessibility options
• Reactive audio that shifts with the system
• Cymatics modes that react to your audio
• Theme customization

Known Issues

• No warnings if you're about to bring your system to a crawl so be careful with Free Energy and Resolution
• A few bugs here and there
• Quanta shape not in radials
• New UI Zoom feature in the Config radial is buggy. Use browser zoom for now.
• The 'new waypoint' button gets stuck on for some reason. Unfortunately if you use it, you'll have to close and reopen the radial to reset it. Will be fixed in the next update.
• The bottom button row jumps to the top left of the screen the first time you click it (but it's fine after that). Will be fixed in next release.

Questions?

Have a question? As usual, I'll respond in the comments.

For a feature guide on the core parameters, check out the video on the alpha 0.1 release page.

Make sure to set the video in this post to 1080p if it doesn't automatically so you can see the tiny text!

Thanks

Thanks to u/endimages for helping me accelerate development on this release!

Thanks to u/gusfromspace for showing their progress on using Scale Space for AI model visualization!

How to Get Scale Space

You can pick it up right here: https://setzstone.itch.io/scale-space

Preview footage of Scale Space Bioclast alpha v0.2