3D Summer

There are many, many programs you can download that make fractals.  Most of them are free and most of them are easy to use.  I have barely scratched the surface of what is out there, so I don't feel like I can make a recommendation.  Since art is subjective, I'd suggest you find your own favorite through google and experimentation.

This past summer, however, a good friend and fellow geek shared the Mandelbox Zoom video on a well-known social networking site.  It blew my mind, and I'm sure it will blow yours, too.

 

Mandelbox Zoom from hömpörgő on Vimeo.

I couldn't believe the colors, the details.  I was amazed by the new yet familiar shapes, all in 3D.  And the video was like flying through this giant alien city (Coruscant, anyone?).  Turns out there's a program that generated the Mandelbox and created the "film."  It's called Mandelbulb3d and it's available at fractalforums.com.  I immediately downloaded it and started experimenting.  Check this out:

The software has functionality to string together a series of (zoomed) images.  It looks like a movie, but you can save it as an animated GIF, like this:

I've always enjoyed the Sierpinski gasket, and the Menger sponge, but I never considered the Sierpinski icosahedron:

As you can see, Mandelbulb3d has a number of fomulas you can display, in both 2D and 3D, and it lets you adjust some parameters as well as make Julia sets.  You can also rotate the three dimensional object.  One of the fomulas we will explore later is the Mandelbar formula, called "Tricorn" in Mandelbulb3d and displayed below.

It looks like a fighter spacecraft.  You can even see a cockpit area!

Frankly, most of the capabilities of Mandelbulb3d were above my head.  I don't understand some of the formulas (there's one for Quaternions, whatever those are).  I know nothing about 3D rendering so being able to adjust those various parameters meant nothing for me.  Nevertheless, my fractal urges were nearly satisfied, at least until Winter Break.