Geometric Screen Savers

Freeware by Larry Loveland

Kids like to watch these.
They require Windows 95 or later.

GeoScape

  • Draws using ellipses or rectangles.
  • Can be paused.
  • Can be moved one step at a time.
  • Can be printed.

Installation:

The GeoScape.zip file is 75K and takes less than a minute to download with a 56K modem. Use a file compression/extraction utility to extract GeoScape.scr from GeoScape.zip. Some file compression/extraction utilities will automatically install GeoScape.scr for you. If not, extract GeoScape.scr to a folder of your choice. For Win95/98 copy it to the c:\windows\system folder. For Win2000/XP copy it to the c:\windows\system32 folder. If you create a shortcut to GeoScape.scr, you can run it anytime you wish. Run GeoScape and press the 'h' key for help.

To make GeoScape your current screen saver, select it from the list of screen savers in your Control Panel's Display Properties.

Download GeoScape.zip   Version 2.1 (75K)

Color Printing:

I tested GeoScape on several color printers. The match of print colors to screen colors ranged in accuracy from "right on" to "not even close". Print colors were affected by printer settings and even by video color depth. I found that 16 and 32 bits per pixel color depths produced the most accurate colors. The 24 bits per pixel print colors were different from the screen colors, but, in some cases, were even better.

None of the printers drew the image on paper where the program told it to. Use the Landscape Print Margins dialog box (press the 'm' key) to tweak the image size and position.

Experiment with the printer settings, video color depth, and print margins to get what looks best to you.

Two More Geometric Screen Savers

Download Gymo.zip
Version 2.2 (73K) 		Download Wormhole.zip
Version 2.1 (62K)

Image Generation

The screen savers on this page all use two moving points to generate their images. This is easiest to see in Gymo (gyrating gismo). The two moving points are simply connected by a straight line. A number of these lines are drawn and eventually old ones are erased.

In GeoScape and Wormhole, the two moving points define opposite corners of a rectangle. Wormhole uses this rectangle as a boundary and draws an ellipse inside it. The rectangle itself is not drawn. A number of these ellipses are drawn and eventually old ones are erased.

GeoScape draws either the rectangle itself or an ellipse inside the rectangle depending on how you set the options. The inside of the figure is then filled with color. Nothing is erased.