Here's a sample of the nice email feedback and things people are writing too me about the Lparser and the Website. It really stimulates me to put more effort into it all. Thanks to all of you out there !
"I followed a link from the povray utilities review page to you site, looking for your lparser program. What a wonderful thing! The images on your site are absolutely stunning. I've downloaded lparser and am planning on playing with it as soon as I get a little spare time. I got into raytracing (using POVRAY) a couple of months ago, and every time I think maybe some other program might offer me more features, I run into some utility that some person has written for it that does something incredible. LPARSER has me absolutely stunned. Thanks for the references to books on this subject as well. My math is rather rusty (yes, I know...my math is rusty, yet for some reason I insist on doing all my raytracing coding by hand for POVRAY...don't ask, I know it doesn't make any sense!) and I can use all the references I can get. By the way, the other pictures that I saw of your work outside of lparser were wonderful as well!"
"I just wanted to compliment you on your work. I recently discovered LParser and it has proved quite useful. I've been able to produce some very interesting geometry with it. I like the fact that reals can be used as the recursion level. I would like to write a simple LS file generator app that will create sequences of LS files that I can then use with LParser to create geometry sequences (The app could change such things as angle and recursion level over time to create some nice results). These sequences of geometry could be used as cycling models in 3D animations. I still need to experiment more to fully understand the possibilities and intricacies of LParser."
"I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your web site. It's rare that I actually send a letter like this when I see a site. I find your (art) work inspirational as a young art student ... myself being interested in programs like POVRay and mathematics. I respect the quality of your web pages and especially the fascinating images.Well, I just downloaded LParser, hopefully I can make some cool organic forms! I'll bet someday art students like me will be reading about you in our art history textbooks!"
"How are you? Last time I wrote you was probably 1994 when I thanked you for Lparser and asked a couple of questions you graciously answered. Lparser remains one of my top 5 programs that I enjoy spending time with. Although I'm not a mathematician I have been working with fractals and math creations from an artistic pov for several years. Lparser, fractint, 3DS, Photoshop, and Form are the 5. I just dusted off my Lparser after a few months of disuse and have been toying with it again. Trying to learn a little turtle code. It's a tough one for me. Whilst looking through your New-and-Improved! pages I checked out the Emerald project. Wow...I was really impressed. Really beautiful. And then I wondered if I could create some cubes like that. Probably not. And so this message was prompted by my wanting to ask you if you had any tips or an .ls file that could lead me to build a few of these random surfaced cubes. Aside from that I want to thank you again for Lparser. It is really a GREAT tool, and I genuinely appreciate the effort that you have put in in creating it, upgrading it, documenting it, and making it available (all for free) on the internet."
"I am an avid 3D Studio MAX user, is there any reason (other than cost) that you use RendersStar? Not to make your ego as big as Deion Sanders, but the images are quite nice (understatment)."
"I was COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED by Lparser. It's absolutely useful. I just want to know one thing: can you make the objects smooth with POV-RAY like CTDS does? (What I mean is using cones connected by spheres). Can textures be applied to individual objects in an Lparser object?"
"Your art-works are very impressive, especially the L-System stuff ! I've tried Lparser for a long time, before i got accesses to our uni-'super'computer. Althought the LParser's 'dialect' isnt very intuitive, the results are suprisingly good, and i've learned a lot about L-system while playing w/ LParser. One of the main feature still missing in LParser is that the user cannot extent the system, and to much geometric-constraints are statically embeded to the parser (F, C, W turtles, for examples). After that, i decided to write a L-parser myself, combined the parallel-rewriting concept of L-system w/ procedural elements of highlevel languages (C). Althought this solution is quite handy for gfx-programmers, the use of a C-like language may be difficult for an artist."
"Wow Laurens; I just went there but then came back here to write you again... That is a GREAT Site!!! I love Lparser, I love the Links. Your writing style is peaceful and beautiful. My favorite was there the "DREAM". I love your work and thinking. and it is very rare. I am going to send my customers there. They ask about "doing better" work and your ideas about looking at traditional art are so to the heart of the matter. Its like you have to walk around, lie around, dream then put it in the machine, model model model render render render dream dream dream model model render dream model render render .dream dream. hike look drive around look look look.dream dream dream..."
"This is a beautiful page. Excellent work!"
"I was looking at your web page today, I got past the first page, did not download Lparser and looked at the graphics. That must make me unusal to say the least. I have had a long interest in raytracing and also polyhdera. I was most impressed in your image of the archimedian solids. I had been thinking about doing something like that myself but now I do not think that I could do anything like as well."
"I like your home site very much, ..seems like a breath of fresh air and a burst of sun light compaired with most sites :)"
"I was very impressed by the work which you have done on Lsystems, and also the applet by Mark Masse whose pagelink I found on your excellent website. Thanks again for your public ramblings."
"I am contacting you on behalf of biota.org. We are very thankful to you for the great work you've done on the Lparser and for the kind link to biota.org from off your Lparser page. As you might already know, Biota.org is a special interest group of the Contact Consortium and is dedicated to exploring the interface of living and digital worlds. I have played around with your Lparser quite a bit and really enjoy the magical experience it provides of watching strange and beautiful unfold before my eyes. Your Lparser has helped spark a lot of excitement as regards the application of L-Systems to the creation of synthetic ecologies over distributed networks."
"I don´t know if I more enjoy your homepage or the Lparser. Both are cool."
"I've visited your WWW pages and I like the Lparser pictures very much. But it wasn't really an idle search that brought me to them; me and my wife are giving her dad a prune tree as a birthday gift. I'm searching for a model of one, that I could run in POVRAY... you wouldn't happen to have one? :)"
"Frankly I am very embarrassed to bother you with such a request, however, I'm desperate. I absolutely love the objects that your program generates. They are exquisite! Thank you so much for doing so. Years ago (August 1993) I read in 3D Artist about the Lparser program that generates beautiful organic objects. I loved them immediately and have kept the article all these years knowing that one day I'd get on the net. The program was the first thing i downloaded with my new modem."
"My name is Nicholas, and I am a big enthusiast of three-dimensional rendering, animation, etc... I recently downloaded your Lparser software, and I must say that I am impressed with the results."
"Just a quick note to express my delight! Possibly this is the very first site I have found that is all things that a web site should be. Intriguing, intricate, impeccably produced, and intelligently written! And as for the images. . . .I was tempted to consult my thesaurus! I shall return after a short play with the Lparser for more. . ."
"I must say THANK YOU! Without your effort and time people could not enjoy the beauty Lparser can bring. I have been using your software for about 5 months. At first I could only use the models you provided with Lparser. I have tried to learn the programing but I'm very busy. Intitially I used to cut and paste and create my own models based on someone else's work. I decided this was not as fun and truly creating my very own. I have some very primitive models and mutations which I render in 3dstudio and then create my artwork. I have a idea for a series of images all based on using Lparser. I espcially want to use them for our prescence at Siggraph this year. I plan to have some very large prints showcased with imagery based on Lparser. I hope I can tie this in with Biota. I had no idea they were using your stuff as well! In my anticipation to start creating my own artwork, I have started researching the coding techniques for Lsystem. Obviously your page has been my starting point. Imaging my surprise when i came across the Biota website! SYNCHRONICITY! Anycase, Thank you for creating Lparser. This gives the non programmer agreat tool to create objects and use them. I have great hope for Lparser. I envision creating ellaborate objects, Horses, people, glass sculptures, etc."
"Just a quick note to express my appreciation for LParser. I heard of it years ago and downloaded it, but it looked too hard to use then. Then, a couple of months ago I was reading "Chaos" by James Gleick, and something made me want to check out LParser again. After I downloaded the new version and looked through the sample files, I could see the connection. This time I actually made the effort to learn the basics, and I have finally created my first object. By the way, Richard Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene" is one of my favourites, and it has also helped me to understand the meaning of LSystems. However I hope to use your program only for creative work, and for pleasure. If I EVER get time, I hope to have an LParser page on my Web site, with images and .ls files. I'll let you know if I ever finish it. Thanks again for your inspiring work."
"I have found a *few* pages recently that I have sent "Good Job" comments back to the authors >> Yours is one of them !!! Very nice the way you blend classic background/highlights with new art ... I got into POV-Ray and LOVE it....sometimes I still loose my images, tho'.... ::-) That's when I invested in RayDreams Designer. But haven't really spent much time with it.....Now I find Lparser >> Why is it that people can't understand why I spend so much time on my computer? Anyways ... off to D/load this util and figure out how to use it. By the way .... hope you don't mind me saying that you are as nice tolook at as your art!!"
"You have not heard from me before, but I've been using -and greatly enjoying (!) - lparser for about a year now. I was trying to model the wind in plants generated by Lparser, but got stuck at the impossibility of re-reading the data tree to apply changes (e.g. when the wind blows). Instead, I now find myself developping a C++ program to do just that. I'll let you know what transpires if I come to a useful end. :-) Many Thanks indeed for making Lparser available."
"I wanted to express my appreciation of your artwork. I downloaded all your images. They are, to me, quite remarkable. I congratulate you on your enviable talent. "
"The gallery images made with L-parser are incredible! ;) L-systems seem a bit difficult to understand, but after I have gotten further with RayDream Studio, I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out...you have well organized web page with beautiful graphics. I especially like the "L" image in your navigation bar. Your program is well thought of by several people on the RDS list. Keep up the good work, and thank you for your effort in creating this program!!!"
"Hello Laurens, I have just visited your website. Wonderful. Over the years I have followed the evolution of Lsystems with great interest and it's lovely to see just how far it's gone. I enjoyed lp05.jpg in particular. The images have a very aquatic quality to them I find. I think though what most impressed me was your Emerald project. Where did you ever get the idea for this ?. Incredible ! Fire, was breathtaking. I have to ask, is the software you used to create this available ? I simply must get a copy. Cheers !"
"This page is great, and so is L-Parser. I use the program a lot, and love the way that it is more text driven than some of the programs out there. I have Win95, but I hate it. Pease, never give LParser a Graphical User Interface. I like programs that aren't user friendly, because to me, user friendly is idiot friendly. Also, thankyou for making your program free. "The best things in life are free." "Designer's Dream" was great. It's sophistication transcends the usual themes of the union of fractal math and art, and makes a genuine attempt
at a purely aesthetic work in computer graphics."
"Enjoyed your site very much.Check out my polyhedra book- see the chart on my site. You might be interested in a game that I have been working on for over 20 years which integrates the mathematical basis of chess and the beauty of polyhedra in an elegant manner....A gaming matrix actually."
"Thank you for making Lparser. And for making the source code available. I recently wrote a DOS program to interpret lparser "ls" files into MIDI music. It seems to mostly work OK.
"WOW! The images on your site are very cool. Are they animated? How about sending us a tape? We're the "Mind's Eye" producers."
"I really love you lviewer it is fast and effective..I admire the way that is manages memory. it is also the most efficient viewer that I have found freely distributed on the internet. Because of these features I would like to use it to design an 3d engine it will create images on the fly from a text file database."
"My name is Kelly -- I'm in Illinois and a grandmotherly, recently unemployed (I hate lay-offs!) computer nut. Now that I have to figure out some way of paying the rent, I'm embarking on doing a line of clocks, using images as the focal point and the clock dial as secondary. (After all, once you've seen what time it is, the clock should be an item of art.) I've seen your work on a CD disk (NOT the one you mentioned) and some of the items would make very nice clocks. I would appreciate your permission to allow me to use them. All artists get recognition on the backs of the clocks, including ANY info (name/phone number/e-mail address/website/etc.) Hope to hear from you soon - when I'm not tearing my hair out trying to size images without distorting them, I'm working on a website for the project."
"I just wanted to tell that I have been looking at your site and I think your emerald cities and 4 elements images are fantastic. My favorites are the 4 elements but I suppose this only personal preference. I have been using pov-ray(not very succesfully from an artistic point of view) for some time now I thought that I wanted to try out the same technique that you used to create the cube images. After playing for a while I came up with some interesting results but of course nothing close to your creations. My problem is that the images I create look to repeatitive and 'computer-generated'. Also as you say creating something tottaly random isn't worthwile. I noticed that you used a "3d fractal texture approach" to create you images. As I am not very mathematically literate I don't know what this is. I merely know what a fractal is, and to tell you the truth not in any great depth."
"I was very impressed by your graphics. I was wondering: are the programs you wrote to generate them are available to download? What hardware do you use?"
"Indeed, I've been using Lsystems programs, and mostly lparser4, to create pine shoots. This in order to make a model allowing to generate parameters otherwise tedious to measure. Your program has been very helpful, and the code extremely handy. Especially with all the explanation that you wrote in it. Even if I had to change a few things that weren't working the way I wanted them too (like the gravity) or to implement a few others (like randomness in length), I could never even dream about coming up with such an awesome code. So thank you very much."
"A long time ago, I made the Mac LParser program. I was excited to see your new version of LParser. I thought perhaps writing the new LParser in Python, within Blender might be a great idea. Then, Blender could be an interactive framework for creating new rules."
"I wanted to thank you for creating and distributing your new LParser5 program. I just downloaded it from your site and look forward to using it a great deal in the coming weeks! I am very excited about it after having just seen your wonderful output model images on your site! Thanks you so much for your outstanding efforts and accomplisments in this fascinating world of 3D fractal geometry, it is a brave new world indeed, and you are recognised worldwide as a true pioneer!"
