Liquib treats an image as if it were a fluid.  It produces the sort of distortions and manipulations that might occur on a liquified surface, including drop, wave and marbled paper type effects.  It is a graphics tool (or toy), in the same vein as Kaleider, that attempts to translate mathematics into visual imagery.

Manipulation Tools and Effects can be manually applied to express your creativity with unique transformations.  Or you can relax and be entertained by the Automatic Effects feature.  Watch as images are contorted, distorted and transmuted by randomly chosen manipulations, always fresh and evolving.  Liquib effects can be reflected onto mirroring panels to create Tiles, which can optionally be centered to maximize symmetries.  The visual display can be accompanied by music from the Audio Player.  Liquib display sequences can be captured to Video, and actions can be Scripted to create choreographed performances of dynamic art, optionally controlled via a MIDI device. Click this miniature Liquib screen to view a larger image ->

The features offered by Liquib are summarized below:

• A Tool is applied by clicking and dragging the mouse across a displayed image to create a particular transformation.  The Stylus and Comb Tools, for example, are intended to emulate 'marbled paper' type effects, as if the image surface were wet paint.  Stretch, Shrink, Grow, Twist, Contort and Rumple Tools produce various distortions of a picture.  The Spray Tool applies droplets of configurable sizes, spacing and styles, the Clone Tool replicates an image segment, Smear creates blurry, fuzzy regions within an image and Wipe produces partial transparency and other transformations along its path.
  • Stylus
  • Comb
  • Stretch
  • Shrink
  • Grow
  • Twist
  • Contort
  • Rumple
  • Spray
  • Clone
  • Smear
  • Wipe

• Effects are manipulations that evolve over time, for example after a Drop is initiated by clicking the mouse, the ripples will spread and undulate until they finally dissipate entirely.  For each type of Effect, a single mouse click produces one occurrence of the effect, while clicking and dragging the mouse creates a series of usually smaller effects.  Clicking and dragging with the Drop Effect, for instance, will produce a trail of 'Dribbles'.  Wave, Bubble, Vortex, Melt, Flow, Quake and Aura Effects similarly move and transform.  Effect actions can be paused or captured at any point.
  • Drop
  • Wave
  • Bubble
  • Vortex
  • Melt
  • Flow
  • Quake
  • Aura

• An Options screen is available for each Tool and Effect, providing parameters to control such characteristics as size, intensity, method, etc. that are applicable to that particular Tool or Effect.  The range of options for the various Tools and Effects can add great versatility to their use, sometimes entirely changing their results.  The Stretch Tool, for example, can make a fine adjustment to a face, or it can skew a whole image, depending the the Stretch Area Affected setting.  A Colorized Shading option for Drops, Waves, Bubbles and Flows produces Effects that seem to pulsate with continually shifting colors.
  

• Tool/Effect Controls can also optionally appear at the top of the screen to allow convenient adjustment of common Tool and Effect parameters, without accessing the detailed Options screens each time.

• A Random button randomly generates a Tool or Effect manipulation.  Random can be right-clicked to create a random effect using the current Tool or Effect.

• Liquib effects can optionally be reflected onto mirroring panels to form Tiles.  A Center option automatically positions Tiles to maximize symmetries.  Tiles can be manually shifted to adjust their relative position within the displayed image, or Wander can be enabled to perform continuous automated shifting on Tiles according to randomly selected motion patterns.

• The Liquib Tools panel can optionally reside along the right edge of the screen.  It contains convenient buttons for Tool and Effect functions and other common options.  The main Liquib Menu and Windows Taskbar can thus be hidden to maximize the area available for displaying images and performing transformations.  A Popup Menu also allows access to all menu options.

• An Edit Tools bar along the bottom of the screen provides handy controls for manipulating images and Tiles.

• Appearance Options are available so that the Liquib interface can be configured to suit individual preferences.
  

• Drop, Wave, Bubble, Flow and Quake Effects can be rendered with two levels of Quality.  Normal Quality mode renders much quicker, and is usually appropriate while effects are evolving on the screen in real-time.  Improved Quality mode renders with greater precision and produces smoother, less ragged results.  The Options screen for each Effect provides choices for using Improved Quality in various situations (Rendering, Recreating and Upscaling).  Generally, unless you have a very fast computer or don't mind sluggish performance, it's best to use Normal Quality during the real-time Rendering process.  Then set the Render with Improved Quality when Finished option to automatically re-render scenes when the Effect is finalized (by choosing Keep or by switching to another Tool or Effect).  A Quality button is also available to toggle between Quality modes interactively, Normal = / Improved = .

• The Upscale function is available when the current source image is larger than the screen size.  Manipulations can be performed conveniently on an image scaled to fit within the main Liquib window, and then Upscaled to match the higher resolution and quality of the original source image.
  

• A powerful Scripting feature provides the ability to record and replay sequences of Tool and Effect actions, allowing a sort of choreography of manipulation and motion.  Recorded Sequences can be saved to files.  The Script Control and Editing screen provides options for loading, saving and editing Script files and Recorded Sequences.
  

• Display sequences can also be captured to Video files, making it possible to share Liquib performances over the internet.  A Video Options screen is available to configure Video Format, Size, Frame Rate, Video and Audio Compression Codecs, etc.  Animations can also be saved as sequences of still image files, and viewed via the Image Sequence Player.
  

• Undo (or the U key) will reverse the most recent Tool or Effect action.  An Image Manipulation History screen allows selection of multiple actions to Undo, and also makes it possible to alter parameters for past actions and then reconstruct the manipulations with any modifications.  The most recent action that has been Undone can be reapplied with Redo.
  

• An Audio Player is available so that Liquib effects can be accompanied by music.  It can play most of the common audio formats (MP3, MIDI, WAV, etc.), as well as audio CDs.

• Flexible options are available for saving Liquib images and Tiles to files.  A Quick Save feature can be used to immediately save an image according to pre-defined parameters for the save directory, file name and image format.  The Save With Special Options screen provides additional choices for saving images at customized sizes.
  

• Images can also be printed, or set as wallpaper for the Desktop background.

• For computers that have more than one display screen, the Multiple Monitors Display option can be used to transmit Liquib generated scenes to the secondary monitors.  Menus, controls, cursors, dialogs, etc. only appear on the primary monitor, so that just images are seen on any secondary screens.  This option might be used, for example, to produce live performances of dynamic art, in which manipulations are selected and controlled from the computer's main monitor, while the audience sees only the results on a large projection display, perhaps accompanied by music.

• The Automatic Effects feature generates continuous Tool and Effect manipulations, according to customized settings available through the Automatic Effects Configuration screen.  Automatic Effects can consist of any mixture of Random Tools and Effects and Scripted Sequences, making it possible to design performances that are totally random, entirely choreographed or some combination.  These visual shows can be accompanied by music.
  

• Veejays and other dynamic motion artists might use the MIDI Control capability to mix Liquib manipulations into their performances.  Signals from a MIDI device can cause Images to display, Scripted sequences to begin, Music selections to play, and many other actions.  It's also possible to play music from an attached MIDI device.

For more detailed information on Liquib features and configuration options, the Liquib Help File can be downloaded to view at your leisure.  (The Help File is also included with the download below.)

Liquib can be downloaded to evaluate on a trial basis.  Several sample photos are included to serve as source images for Liquib effects:

After trying Liquib, it can be purchased and registered, without having to re-download it:  Register Liquib