Visprint creates png images of fractal fingerprints based on file contents.
The Visprint project is a piece of software that generates fractal fingerprint png images based on the contents of any file. The unique aspect of Visprint is that the resulting image will be different for almost every file, even those that are only slightly different. To achieve this, Visprint uses the IFS fractal generation process created by Michael Barnsley.
This process creates images that are self-similar to infinite depths, meaning that the picture is made up of smaller versions of itself. The original code was written by Ian Goldberg, based on an idea by Hal Finney, in a post to the coderpunks mailing list. Raph Levien added excellent color enhancements, David Johnston created a Win95 console mode port and added several features, and Soren Andersen developed the png and transparency code.
The user who currently maintains Visprint decided to rescue the orphaned code from oblivion, clean it up, document it, and maintain it. No copyright infringement occurred, as the code has always been freely available on the internet, and the previous authors are all properly acknowledged.
Visprint is not intended to be a stand-alone security tool, but rather a "toy" program that generates cool graphics. It serves as a fun graphic complement to md5 checksums but should not be used as a substitute for any file checker. Though it can be used to check differences in files and uses a cryptographic hash function (md5) as its input, it has not been designed or tested for heavy security use.
The latest release of Visprint includes several new features and bugfixes. It includes the ability to use different hash functions as input with the -l switch, an alternate color scheme option by flipping RGB to BGR with the -c switch, and polished and fixed grayscale color schemes. Additionally, the previous -c switch was renamed to -a (area coloring scheme), and a bug in the transparency code was fixed. The man page and help screen were also updated, and several minor bugfixes and code cleanups were completed.
This process creates images that are self-similar to infinite depths, meaning that the picture is made up of smaller versions of itself. The original code was written by Ian Goldberg, based on an idea by Hal Finney, in a post to the coderpunks mailing list. Raph Levien added excellent color enhancements, David Johnston created a Win95 console mode port and added several features, and Soren Andersen developed the png and transparency code.
The user who currently maintains Visprint decided to rescue the orphaned code from oblivion, clean it up, document it, and maintain it. No copyright infringement occurred, as the code has always been freely available on the internet, and the previous authors are all properly acknowledged.
Visprint is not intended to be a stand-alone security tool, but rather a "toy" program that generates cool graphics. It serves as a fun graphic complement to md5 checksums but should not be used as a substitute for any file checker. Though it can be used to check differences in files and uses a cryptographic hash function (md5) as its input, it has not been designed or tested for heavy security use.
The latest release of Visprint includes several new features and bugfixes. It includes the ability to use different hash functions as input with the -l switch, an alternate color scheme option by flipping RGB to BGR with the -c switch, and polished and fixed grayscale color schemes. Additionally, the previous -c switch was renamed to -a (area coloring scheme), and a bug in the transparency code was fixed. The man page and help screen were also updated, and several minor bugfixes and code cleanups were completed.
What's New
Version 2.1: N/A