Fractals - Chaos in the Gallery

This is my small exhibit of Fractal art on the web. What are fractals? Quite simply, a type of maths that deals with interesting problems. The solutions to certain procedures appear as the graphics you see before you, suitably coloured for your enjoyment. It will show that I have my own favourite colour palette, but I do also choose colours that will highlight the beauty of this form of art. I think of it as a great way to combine my desire for good looking and interesting pictures with my absence of real paper art skills and love of computing.

Most of these I have in 2048x1536 - that seems to be the best format to get good detail out of the colour laser printer that they have lying around here. Before you get totally up in arms about all this sinful use of public money, I've offered to pay many times - it costs $3 for an A4 print and $4 for an A3, but the cost of actually invoicing me is an extra charge of $54, which the guy there assures me he won't worry about. Besides, they print two full colour photos a day just for the calibration of this very expensive piece of equipment - and I'm lucky if I do this once a month.

I don't know, however, if Geocities will be so happy to have large numbers of 2MB GIF files lying around in my directory, so I don't keep them here. Some day soon I will send them all either to Noel at Spanky, who collects Fractint pictures, or the guy at CNAM whose name I've temporarily forgotten who collects fractal art of all shapes and sizes. When I get that set up, each of those pictures will be a link to the real thing - and that will also include all the Fractint location detail so you can wander around to your heart's content.

Name Description Picture

ColForge I like the idea ofthe colours boiling out of the black pit of the Mandelbrot. It's classification should be M2N2AC8 something.

Curly1 This is a curly one. Possibly not quite as curly as some of the ones I've been recently generating, but it's nicely presented, anyway. And the colours will probably make a change from that dull chromatic theme I usually work with...

Elektric It brings to my mind ideas of electric flames or lightning.

FernMand This is possibly one of my best colour choices. It's a fairly simple one-armed spiral, but curled like fern leaves into intricate spirals, laces and zigzags.

Firenice Short for Fire and Ice, this one is another of my custom colour palette picks. It seems to work, anyway.

M1N2AC8a (Mandelbrot, 1-armed region, 2 arms, complexity 8) A very complex set, here - a tiny mandelbrot gem enveloped in a seething bath of energy swirls and sparks.

M2N2AC7a (Mandelbrot, 2-armed region, 2 arms, complexity 7) You can see the main two-armed structure that forms a lot of Mandelbrot art, here - and also the way the spirals lead down to a point that you can never quite reach. In the structure of the surrounds, you find slightly less curly two-armed forks.

M2N3AC6a (Mandelbrot, 2-armed region, 3 arms, complexity 6) A strange Mandelbrot generator of crackling, forking energy in the void of space...

MAN1AC6a (Mandelbrot, 1 arm, complexity 6) Proof that one arm doesn't have to mean simplicity of design. A lightning bolt stabs down, a Mandelbrot gem at its heart.

MAN2AC6b (Mandelbrot, 2 arms, complexity 6) Taken from an area of complex, furry swirls.

M2C6e32 (Mandelbrot, 2 arms, complexity 6, 320x200 res) One of my high-iteration zooms - this one took 14 minutes on a Pentium Pro 200. It's a complex net of little spirals, so intricate and highly drawn together that the colour cycle along the arm creates the impression of the colour wave. It was good fortune and a certain amount of knowledge that led me to this point - there are more where this came from...

MAN2AC8b (Mandelbrot, 2 arms, complexity 8) I should probably reclassify this as M3N2A, but that's how it is for the moment. This is a similar idea to M2N2AC7a above, but different colours and a slightly more complex structure, I think you'll find...

MAN5AC5a (Mandelbrot, 5 arms, complexity 5) This has a rather nice atmosphere, remote and yet somehow alive...

Sunrise This was for a continuing series of fractal art for a friend of mine, who was wanting various Mandelbrot pictures to adorn chapter headings in a book. This is trying to give the impression of a sunrise (which is, strangely enough, how it got its name), and is pretty well chosen, IMHO.

Raytracing

This seems to be a difficult one to describe. Basically, what we do is get a computer to draw up a realistic picture from a text file describing a scene. In the language of this program, called a raytracer, I describe the properties of the objects, and various other characteristics of the scene. The raytracer works by looking, from an imaginary camera, through a rectangle that is the screen into this described scene, and calculates the colour seen through each pixel on the screen. Essentially, we trace the ray of 'sight' into the scene and see what it looks like. Ray - Tracing. Get it?

Name Description Picture

Arrow1 This is a model I've been working on for a fair while, and have even entered in the International Ray-Tracing Competition run by those nice people at POVRay.org. The craft features in one of my 'short' stories, and the rear wings can swing back for a more streamlined, cruising configuration called 'bolt' mode. Shown here in 'pin' mode, its triangular pattern of jets allow for very quick manoeuvring.

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Name	Description	Picture
ColForge	I like the idea ofthe colours boiling out of the black pit of the Mandelbrot. It's classification should be M2N2AC8 something.
Curly1	This is a curly one. Possibly not quite as curly as some of the ones I've been recently generating, but it's nicely presented, anyway. And the colours will probably make a change from that dull chromatic theme I usually work with...
Elektric	It brings to my mind ideas of electric flames or lightning.
FernMand	This is possibly one of my best colour choices. It's a fairly simple one-armed spiral, but curled like fern leaves into intricate spirals, laces and zigzags.
Firenice	Short for Fire and Ice, this one is another of my custom colour palette picks. It seems to work, anyway.
M1N2AC8a	(Mandelbrot, 1-armed region, 2 arms, complexity 8) A very complex set, here - a tiny mandelbrot gem enveloped in a seething bath of energy swirls and sparks.
M2N2AC7a	(Mandelbrot, 2-armed region, 2 arms, complexity 7) You can see the main two-armed structure that forms a lot of Mandelbrot art, here - and also the way the spirals lead down to a point that you can never quite reach. In the structure of the surrounds, you find slightly less curly two-armed forks.
M2N3AC6a	(Mandelbrot, 2-armed region, 3 arms, complexity 6) A strange Mandelbrot generator of crackling, forking energy in the void of space...
MAN1AC6a	(Mandelbrot, 1 arm, complexity 6) Proof that one arm doesn't have to mean simplicity of design. A lightning bolt stabs down, a Mandelbrot gem at its heart.
MAN2AC6b	(Mandelbrot, 2 arms, complexity 6) Taken from an area of complex, furry swirls.
M2C6e32	(Mandelbrot, 2 arms, complexity 6, 320x200 res) One of my high-iteration zooms - this one took 14 minutes on a Pentium Pro 200. It's a complex net of little spirals, so intricate and highly drawn together that the colour cycle along the arm creates the impression of the colour wave. It was good fortune and a certain amount of knowledge that led me to this point - there are more where this came from...
MAN2AC8b	(Mandelbrot, 2 arms, complexity 8) I should probably reclassify this as M3N2A, but that's how it is for the moment. This is a similar idea to M2N2AC7a above, but different colours and a slightly more complex structure, I think you'll find...
MAN5AC5a	(Mandelbrot, 5 arms, complexity 5) This has a rather nice atmosphere, remote and yet somehow alive...
Sunrise	This was for a continuing series of fractal art for a friend of mine, who was wanting various Mandelbrot pictures to adorn chapter headings in a book. This is trying to give the impression of a sunrise (which is, strangely enough, how it got its name), and is pretty well chosen, IMHO.