What was all the fuss about fractals?

Magno Boots · 07 April 2006, 21:32

I remember there was a time when nearly every coverdisk had some fractals on them, or magazines had pictures of them.

What was all the fuss about?

I thought a fractal was a randomly generated object?

They were nearly always the same shape anyway!
Were they meant to be?

T_hairy_bootson · 07 April 2006, 23:56

They were infinate art made with mathematical formulas.

Some of them looked pretty cool and I liked zooming in again and again.

Although not a fractal I had a random 3d landscape generator as well on a utility, disk that was pretty cool.

DDNI · 08 April 2006, 09:00

That scene generator was on Amiga User International coverdisk No.42
I was just looking at it last night!
If you want an adf I will up it to the Zone for you.

T_hairy_bootson · 08 April 2006, 10:23

Quote:

That scene generator was on Amiga User International coverdisk No.42
I was just looking at it last night!
If you want an adf I will up it to the Zone for you.

Yeah cool if you don't mind. Thanks for that.

Marcuz · 08 April 2006, 11:21

there was an amazing fractal generator done by Hermes Contoura, a greek mathematician if i understand right. i'll post it later

mcbpete · 08 April 2006, 16:48

Fractals must have got pretty awesome looking since they got big in the 90's. Is there a good example of what sort of stuff you can do with them nowadays ?

mr_a500 · 08 April 2006, 16:54

There seemed to be a bit of a "fractal mania" from 1990 to 1995 for some reason.

One great fractal program that you must check out is "Mand2000". You can cycle colours, zoom in and out and even make "zoom movies". It's very psychedelic and hypnotic.

Another neat program is "TrigNumy". The fractals end up looking like spider webs and nebulae.

Edit: these are Amiga programs, not examples of modern
fractals

CodyJarrett · 08 April 2006, 17:54

Even if the results weren't that practical they do represent the creative aspect and potential of computing that the Amiga introduced a lot of people to. And that you could do this sort of thing with a magazine coverdisk also meant that it was financially viable.

For me other examples of cool Amiga applications were Vista, Scala, Imagine, OctaMed etc.

Morphing had a similar period of interest too.

FromWithin · 08 April 2006, 19:43

Fractals are basically forms that repeat, no matter at what depth you look at them. Read the book Chaos by James Gleick for a great insight into everything fractal. Nature is inherently chaotic and fractal. Trees, coastlines, mountains, clouds: all are fractal in nature; no matter how distant you are from them, they have the same form. Computers got powerful enough at that time for fractals to be easily generated. In the 80s they were pretty much relegated to super computers. The mandelbrot set is the classic fractal graphic, and produces some amazing and unique images at various places and depths. Chaos theory is very useful for predicting/simulating all sorts of things natural like weather patterns, fluid dynamics, organic growth, etc. Fractals are effectively an off-shoot of chaos.

I'd suggest you have a look for some current fractal software. With today's fast computers, you can wander around fractal algorithms almost in real-time. It's quite fascinating, especially when you understand the contrast between simplicity of the underlying algorithms and the complexity of the output.

DDNI · 08 April 2006, 19:59

Amiga User International N042 now in the Zone.

SceneGenerator for T Hairy Bootson and MiniMorph for Cody Jarrett

IFW · 08 April 2006, 21:00

http://www.speedtree.com/

zardoz · 09 April 2006, 11:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by FromWithin

Fractals are basically forms that repeat, no matter at what depth you look at them.

I don't think that's necessarily true. Infinitely scaleable yes, but it's only some fractals like the mandelbrot set where you can see the same structure again and again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FromWithin

Read the book Chaos by James Gleick for a great insight into everything fractal.

Yes - I read that one. It's got basic algorithms for the Mandelbrot set and the Julia set, I remember implementing one on my Spectrum. It took it a day to render a black and white Mandelbrot set in Spectrum basic, then my computer broke.

I guess that fractals got big in the 70s and 80s when university mainframes got powerful enough to do the maths required. Then in the 16 bit era home computers were colourful enough and fast enough to do the job - hey presto, everyone's writing fractal generators.

The code is really easy - all you're doing is plotting a graph, with real numbers on the horizontal axis and imaginary numbers on the vertical axis. For each point (Real / Imaginary pair x+iy) plug x & y into an equation that solves iterively (that is, the result of the equation goes back into it). Eventually the result of the equation dwindles to zero, and I colour my pixel proportionally to the number of times I've iterated, or black if it fails to solve.

The interesting parts are the edge of the solveable / insoluable bit of the graph - in fact there is no edge, the closer you look, the more detail is revealed - this edge is infinitely long and is like another dimension - hence the term fractional dimension or Fractal.

leroq · 12 April 2006, 23:58

James Gleick's software is available here from one of the authors (scroll down). Those cellular automata/artificial life things are also pretty gnarly. I remember when some C64 magazine printed a small fractal prog that took like the whole night to compute one screen. I was getting something like psychedelic flashes from the stuff

Marcuz · 13 April 2006, 23:28

strange attractors...

s2325 · 20 June 2011, 23:28

Something similar to SceneGenerator but much simpler for Atari ST:

I found it on GSC1 compilation disk image.

desiv · 22 June 2011, 06:00

Love Fractals..
I remember even now an Amiga program called MandelMountains that created the most incredible shots on my Amiga 500....

For someone who couldn't even draw a straight line with the line tool in DPaint, it was a way for me to "create" great images. ;-) Well, kind of.. ;-)

desiv

07 April 2006, 21:32	#1
Magno Boots Zone Friend Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Hertfordshire Posts: 688	What was all the fuss about fractals? I remember there was a time when nearly every coverdisk had some fractals on them, or magazines had pictures of them. What was all the fuss about? I thought a fractal was a randomly generated object? They were nearly always the same shape anyway! Were they meant to be?

08 April 2006, 16:54	#7
mr_a500 Amiga-based Cyborg Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 808	There seemed to be a bit of a "fractal mania" from 1990 to 1995 for some reason. One great fractal program that you must check out is "Mand2000". You can cycle colours, zoom in and out and even make "zoom movies". It's very psychedelic and hypnotic. Another neat program is "TrigNumy". The fractals end up looking like spider webs and nebulae. Edit: these are Amiga programs, not examples of modern fractals Last edited by mr_a500; 08 April 2006 at 17:00.

13 April 2006, 23:28	#14
Marcuz Registered User Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: . Age: 48 Posts: 5,562	strange attractors... Attached Thumbnails

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07 April 2006, 23:56	#2
T_hairy_bootson Workbitch 1.3 Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Age: 47 Posts: 2,084	They were infinate art made with mathematical formulas. Some of them looked pretty cool and I liked zooming in again and again. Although not a fractal I had a random 3d landscape generator as well on a utility, disk that was pretty cool.

08 April 2006, 09:00	#3
DDNI Targ Explorer Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Northern Ireland Posts: 5,433	That scene generator was on Amiga User International coverdisk No.42 I was just looking at it last night! If you want an adf I will up it to the Zone for you.

08 April 2006, 11:21	#5
Marcuz Registered User Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: . Age: 48 Posts: 5,562	there was an amazing fractal generator done by Hermes Contoura, a greek mathematician if i understand right. i'll post it later

08 April 2006, 16:48	#6
mcbpete Zone Friend Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: London, England Age: 42 Posts: 239	Fractals must have got pretty awesome looking since they got big in the 90's. Is there a good example of what sort of stuff you can do with them nowadays ?

08 April 2006, 17:54	#8
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,162	Even if the results weren't that practical they do represent the creative aspect and potential of computing that the Amiga introduced a lot of people to. And that you could do this sort of thing with a magazine coverdisk also meant that it was financially viable. For me other examples of cool Amiga applications were Vista, Scala, Imagine, OctaMed etc. Morphing had a similar period of interest too.

08 April 2006, 19:43	#9
FromWithin Music lord Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Liverpool, UK Age: 50 Posts: 630	Fractals are basically forms that repeat, no matter at what depth you look at them. Read the book Chaos by James Gleick for a great insight into everything fractal. Nature is inherently chaotic and fractal. Trees, coastlines, mountains, clouds: all are fractal in nature; no matter how distant you are from them, they have the same form. Computers got powerful enough at that time for fractals to be easily generated. In the 80s they were pretty much relegated to super computers. The mandelbrot set is the classic fractal graphic, and produces some amazing and unique images at various places and depths. Chaos theory is very useful for predicting/simulating all sorts of things natural like weather patterns, fluid dynamics, organic growth, etc. Fractals are effectively an off-shoot of chaos. I'd suggest you have a look for some current fractal software. With today's fast computers, you can wander around fractal algorithms almost in real-time. It's quite fascinating, especially when you understand the contrast between simplicity of the underlying algorithms and the complexity of the output.

08 April 2006, 19:59	#10
DDNI Targ Explorer Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Northern Ireland Posts: 5,433	Amiga User International N042 now in the Zone. SceneGenerator for T Hairy Bootson and MiniMorph for Cody Jarrett

08 April 2006, 21:00	#11
IFW Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: ... Age: 52 Posts: 1,838	http://www.speedtree.com/

12 April 2006, 23:58	#13
leroq Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: BBBerlin Posts: 22	James Gleick's software is available here from one of the authors (scroll down). Those cellular automata/artificial life things are also pretty gnarly. I remember when some C64 magazine printed a small fractal prog that took like the whole night to compute one screen. I was getting something like psychedelic flashes from the stuff

20 June 2011, 23:28	#15
s2325 Zone Friend Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Gargore Age: 43 Posts: 17,789	Something similar to SceneGenerator but much simpler for Atari ST: I found it on GSC1 compilation disk image.

22 June 2011, 06:00	#16
desiv Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Salem, OR Posts: 1,770	Love Fractals.. I remember even now an Amiga program called MandelMountains that created the most incredible shots on my Amiga 500.... For someone who couldn't even draw a straight line with the line tool in DPaint, it was a way for me to "create" great images. ;-) Well, kind of.. ;-) desiv

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