The sampling that stops growing, and the one that does not

The sampling that stops growing, and the one that does not

English-like of 512 characters repeated up to 32 times, identically. The upper curve is the run-length index's regular sampling at one value in 32; the lower is the r-index's two values per run. Across the sweep the first grows 39.05x and the second 1.49x, and the second's growth is entirely the ⌈log₂ n⌉ each value is written in — r itself does not move once there is a second copy. Both axes are logarithmic.

Drawn at 700 × 430, wide on the page. Everything above is what run-sampling returns with no arguments; the caption is the generator's own, computed from the numbers in the drawing rather than written beside it.

5 essays call run-sampling. The drawing above is what it returns with no arguments at all; every call below passes it something, because a placement that passes nothing draws whichever member of the family the generator happens to default to rather than the one its essay argues about — which is what optcheck and figfill exist to catch.