pub fn skeleton_diameter(table: &IfsTable) -> f32Expand description
The diameter of the fixed-point set: max over j, k of ‖pⱼ − pₖ‖.
At most six pairwise distances over fixed_points’ four slots. The padded
slots duplicate drawn maps, so a duplicate contributes a zero distance and
this is the drawn set’s diameter exactly — the same property that lets the
respawn pick one of four with no branch.
Closed form, and deliberately not chaos_extent. A bounding box is a
supremum statistic fixed by the single rarest point an orbit reached: two
runs of chaos_extent on the same table disagree by 0.046 at 20 000
iterations and by 0.143 at 100 000, and the disagreement grows (ADR-0087
Notes, ADR-0088 Alternative D). Normalising a colour coordinate by that would
make the gradient’s scale wobble across a morph by an amount nobody chose,
and cost a Monte Carlo per preset switch. This is exact, deterministic, and a
continuous function of the table, so it moves across a morph exactly as
smoothly as the points themselves do.
It is also the meaningful scale — the figure’s own skeleton rather than a
box drawn around its excursions — which is why a particle can legitimately
measure past 1. That is clamped at the read, not here.