metaballs(6)

metaballs6

Draws 2d metaballs

Usage

metaballs [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual] [--window] [--root] [--window-id number] [--ncolors number] [--count number] [--delay number] [--cycles number] [--radius number] [--delta number] [--fps]

Overview

This hack draws 2D metaballs to the screen by calculating the sum of the colors of all metaballs covering a pixel.

Options

--visual visual

Specify which visual to use. Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual.

--window

Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default.

--root

Draw on the root window.

--window-id number

Draw on the specified window.

--ncolors number

Number of Colors. Default: 256.

--count number

Number of metaballs. 2 - 255. Default: 10.

--delay number

Per-frame delay, in microseconds. Default: 5000 (0.005 seconds.).

--cycles number

Duration. 100 - 3000. Default: 1000.

--radius number

metaball Radius. 2 - 100. Default: 100.

--delta number

metaball Movement. 1 - 20. Default: 3.

--fps

Display the current frame rate and CPU load.

Environment

DISPLAY

to get the default host and display number.

XENVIRONMENT

to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW

The window ID to use with --root.

Author

W.P. van Paassen

From xscreensaver 6.15-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.