The Fractint map gradient format has been around some time, and JWildfire can still read those files to set a fractals gradient. However, it can also read UGR files. They are a single file which contains many gradients, which makes them handy when organising groups of gradients around a theme. Converting those previously, was tricky. There was a program for Windows, but it had to be patched to work, and wouldn’t always work with later versions of Windows. Ian Thompson of the JWildfire Sanctuary facebook group, kindly wrote an application for this. It does much more, but we’ll focus here on converting map files only.

Converting map files to UGR files

Download and install the software.
The software is called “The Bourne Project” and can be downloaded from this website here.
Once installed, run the program
There is a great help area you can click on, but this is the main interface to the software. So make sure there’s a dot next to “Load Maps” , then click “Load”
Find your MAP files
Locate the folder where your map files are, and click the first entry.
Select all the map files
In windows there are a number of ways to select multiple files. The easiest is to highlight one file, then press CTRL and A together (select all) which will select all the files. Or, you can click on one file then hold the shift key down and click the last file and it will select all in between. Or, you can hold the CTRL key down and click individual files. For this, we’re going to select all the files in this folder. Once done selecting, click the open button.
Map files should all be now loaded into the software.
You’ll see a list of all the map files inside the software now, ready to be converted. Click one, scroll down, then shift click the last, CTRL A won’t work here unfortunately. Make sure you have all the MAP files selected that you want to convert.
Click the Save button
Clicking the Save button, will now allow you to save all the individual map files out as one UGR file. So click it, and then choose where you want to save the UGR, and what name to give it, and that’s it ! So easy !