Fractals may have become a cliche in modern computer graphics,
but they have a long and rich history in art.
Before anybody even knew Mandelbrot, artists were seeing fractals in nature and transferred the patterns in painting, design and sculpture. Fractals, as you may know, are geometric patterns that are repeated on smaller and smaller scales to produce intricate designs, through self-similarity, described by the Mandelbrot Equation.
posted by Leisure_Muffin
on May 10, 2011 -
22 comments
Fractal Lab is an interactive WebGL fractal generating app that allows you to virtually explore 3D fractals in a web browser (Chrome or the latest Firefox 4 beta).
[more inside]
posted by crunchland
on Mar 7, 2011 -
20 comments
Hunting the Hidden Dimension. You may be familiar with fractals, but in this PBS Nova episode, divided online into 5 parts, fractals go beyond the impossible zoom of the
Mandelbrot set. Scientists are using fractals to describe complex natural occurrences, like
lava,
capillaries, and
rain forests. In part 5, scientists measure one tree in the rain forests, and the distribution of small and large branches mirror the distribution of small and large trees. Fractals, it seems,
are nature.
posted by plexi
on Nov 2, 2008 -
43 comments
Fractal animation videos. Tune in. Turn on. Drop in on a dripping skirling-swirling pulsating orgy of self-transforming recursive math. Some with fractal music.
(Non-embedded mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 files, like God intended.)
posted by loquacious
on Aug 7, 2005 -
15 comments
HOP draws beautiful abstract images and real-time animations, based on "strange attractor" formulas, enhanced by mathematical and graphical special effects. It's a unique interactive fractal generator, but doubles as a cute screensaver if you're feeling lazy
(runs in DOS/windows).
posted by walrus
on Feb 7, 2002 -
2 comments
