5 ms·

Fractal Machine

70 points by zaptheimpaler 13y ago

aa0 13y ago
I guess this is a good time to plug XaoS a multiplatform real-time fractal viewer: http://wmi.math.u-szeged.hu/xaos/doku.php http://wmi.math.u-szeged.hu/xaos/doku.php Recently it was ported to iOS which is pretty cool..so it really runs on about anything: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xaos/id576120234?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xaos/id576120234?mt=8 I've had tons of fun with it. You can enter your own formulas as well as change coloring, do automatic rotation/color cycling for a trippy effect, and a ton more of exploration. Explore all the fractals! :-)
- hy3lxs 13y ago
  When I see a GPLv2 app in the app store that is non-free, how do I know that the proceeds are properly going to the XaoS project?
  - aa0 13y ago
    GPLv2 says nothing about proceeds from commercial profits. All it requires is for requests for the source code to be honored.
pjscott 13y ago
Strangely enough, I feel like this would be more impressive if it rendered more slowly. Does anybody else remember waiting several minutes for a fractal to render? These days, it's so easy to forget how amazing it really is.
- _greim_ 13y ago
  You might enjoy this JavaScript turtle graphics renderer I built. It has a few sample fractals and everything renders incrementally. http://obadger.com/turtle/ http://obadger.com/turtle/
- jockc 13y ago
  Depends on the fractal. I occasionally make HD animations (using Ultra Fractal), and those run about 1 hour PER FRAME. A short clip takes several months, just to render. (search for jockc on youtube if interested)
rolleiflex 13y ago
I have also made[1] a similar thing which allows you to select colouring and enter the seeds manually, and then export the resulting picture in the resolution you want. [1] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5815330/burak-wk4/JSProject.html https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5815330/burak-wk4/JSProj...
Ono-Sendai 13y ago
We also make some software that evaluates fractals in a statistical way using iterated function systems (IFS): http://chaoticafractals.com/ http://chaoticafractals.com/ Check out the gallery here: http://chaoticafractals.com/node/114 http://chaoticafractals.com/node/114
- X4 13y ago
  Gentoo Linux: ./chaotica --help ⏎ Chaotica v1.0.2 (c) 2013 Glare Technologies Ltd. http://chaoticafractals.com http://chaoticafractals.com / support@glaretechnologies.com Cannot mix incompatible Qt library (version 0x40805) with this library (version 0x40804) [1] 11491 abort ./chaotica --help
kephra 13y ago
/me sings "An other one bites the dust" Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 6029312) (tried to allocate 122880 bytes) in /home/facebutt/public_html/blog/wp-includes/query.php on line 2030 blog.sciencevsmagic.net went down at 10:16 UTC because of HN DDOS, with only 18 points (1800 visitors estimated so far)
- oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
  facebutt ?!
MarcScott 13y ago
Beautiful.
willvarfar 13y ago
A webGL version - even using JS to make lines, and just using gl.LINES for the plotting - would be much more responsive. For extra points though, put the rendering inside a GLSL fragment shader!
algorias 13y ago
Somehow, as soon as graphics are involved, things that are essentially "hello, world!" kinds of projects routinely make it to the front page of HN. This is neat, specially for someone's 2nd programming project, but is it HN material? I think not.
garysieling 13y ago
Neat- I like the 'random feature'. I wrote up a phantomjs script to generate a whole bunch of random fractal screenshots- http://garysieling.com/blog/generating-fractal-images-with-fractal-machine-and-phantomjs http://garysieling.com/blog/generating-fractal-images-with-f...
BostX 13y ago
Very nice!
drone 13y ago
As an aside, his blog seems to be affected by a serious amount of pingback spam. He might want to use some filtering on pingbacks.
Scaevolus 13y ago
Base-motif fractals are subsets of L-systems [1], which can be used to accurately model plant growth [2]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-system [2]: http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/#abop http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/#abop
gus_massa 13y ago
Nice graphics, but this creates some problems with the back button. In IE10 the back history is transformed into an infinite list of "Fractal Machine" links (specially using animate). In Chrome pressing the back button does nothing (the icon spins, but the page never changes.)

70 points by zaptheimpaler 13y ago

aa0 13y ago

I guess this is a good time to plug XaoS a multiplatform real-time fractal viewer: http://wmi.math.u-szeged.hu/xaos/doku.php http://wmi.math.u-szeged.hu/xaos/doku.php Recently it was ported to iOS which is pretty cool..so it really runs on about anything: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xaos/id576120234?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xaos/id576120234?mt=8 I've had tons of fun with it. You can enter your own formulas as well as change coloring, do automatic rotation/color cycling for a trippy effect, and a ton more of exploration. Explore all the fractals! :-)

hy3lxs 13y ago
When I see a GPLv2 app in the app store that is non-free, how do I know that the proceeds are properly going to the XaoS project?
- aa0 13y ago
  GPLv2 says nothing about proceeds from commercial profits. All it requires is for requests for the source code to be honored.

pjscott 13y ago

Strangely enough, I feel like this would be more impressive if it rendered more slowly. Does anybody else remember waiting several minutes for a fractal to render? These days, it's so easy to forget how amazing it really is.

_greim_ 13y ago
You might enjoy this JavaScript turtle graphics renderer I built. It has a few sample fractals and everything renders incrementally. http://obadger.com/turtle/ http://obadger.com/turtle/
jockc 13y ago
Depends on the fractal. I occasionally make HD animations (using Ultra Fractal), and those run about 1 hour PER FRAME. A short clip takes several months, just to render. (search for jockc on youtube if interested)

rolleiflex 13y ago

I have also made[1] a similar thing which allows you to select colouring and enter the seeds manually, and then export the resulting picture in the resolution you want. [1] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5815330/burak-wk4/JSProject.html https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5815330/burak-wk4/JSProj...

Ono-Sendai 13y ago

We also make some software that evaluates fractals in a statistical way using iterated function systems (IFS): http://chaoticafractals.com/ http://chaoticafractals.com/ Check out the gallery here: http://chaoticafractals.com/node/114 http://chaoticafractals.com/node/114

X4 13y ago
Gentoo Linux: ./chaotica --help ⏎ Chaotica v1.0.2 (c) 2013 Glare Technologies Ltd. http://chaoticafractals.com http://chaoticafractals.com / support@glaretechnologies.com Cannot mix incompatible Qt library (version 0x40805) with this library (version 0x40804) [1] 11491 abort ./chaotica --help

kephra 13y ago

/me sings "An other one bites the dust" Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 6029312) (tried to allocate 122880 bytes) in /home/facebutt/public_html/blog/wp-includes/query.php on line 2030 blog.sciencevsmagic.net went down at 10:16 UTC because of HN DDOS, with only 18 points (1800 visitors estimated so far)

oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
facebutt ?!

MarcScott 13y ago

Beautiful.

willvarfar 13y ago

A webGL version - even using JS to make lines, and just using gl.LINES for the plotting - would be much more responsive. For extra points though, put the rendering inside a GLSL fragment shader!

algorias 13y ago

Somehow, as soon as graphics are involved, things that are essentially "hello, world!" kinds of projects routinely make it to the front page of HN. This is neat, specially for someone's 2nd programming project, but is it HN material? I think not.

garysieling 13y ago

Neat- I like the 'random feature'. I wrote up a phantomjs script to generate a whole bunch of random fractal screenshots- http://garysieling.com/blog/generating-fractal-images-with-fractal-machine-and-phantomjs http://garysieling.com/blog/generating-fractal-images-with-f...

BostX 13y ago

Very nice!

drone 13y ago

As an aside, his blog seems to be affected by a serious amount of pingback spam. He might want to use some filtering on pingbacks.

Scaevolus 13y ago

Base-motif fractals are subsets of L-systems [1], which can be used to accurately model plant growth [2]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-system [2]: http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/#abop http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/#abop

gus_massa 13y ago

Nice graphics, but this creates some problems with the back button. In IE10 the back history is transformed into an infinite list of "Fractal Machine" links (specially using animate). In Chrome pressing the back button does nothing (the icon spins, but the page never changes.)