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Hi everybody.

I published a little CUDA app that allows one to render amazing "plancton" like fractals in a voxel representation. It needs a *fast* nVidia chip though - even on my GTX 260 the updates after changing the parameters take half a second or more. The CUDA source code and a Win32 executable are attached inside the ZIP file in this thread.

This program uses a slight generalization of the Mandelbulb idea where instead of using a spherical coordinate system I use two separate rotations based on axes that one can freely choose relative to each other.

With an adjustable exponent, and two extra degrees of freedom for pointing the axes relative to each other endless fun is guaranteed ;) You can also rotate the plancton, pan around and zoom - but deep zooms are impossible due to the limited resolution of the voxel space.

Also find screenshots and the Win32 binary and CUDA source code here: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?s=1bf094526ea25174ffb8815dbbad1df7&showtopic=153257 (http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?s=1bf094526ea25174ffb8815dbbad1df7&showtopic=153257) and here http://www.fractalforums.com/mandelbulb-renderings/a-new-class-of-bulb/ (http://www.fractalforums.com/mandelbulb-renderings/a-new-class-of-bulb/)

On slower cards you can start VoxelPlancton.exe with the --size=128 or --size=64 parameter (this works even on my laptop with a 9600M GT card) - but the rendering is less detailed then .Arguments can be passed from a command prompt or by creating a short cut to the exe and appending this argument in the target field of the shortcut, but leave a space character inbetween.

It was a fun two-day project and I might explore further to find for a raymarching solution (I need the derivative, but my equations rotate with quaternions based on arbitrary axes - so it is a hard problem for me to crack). The linked "A new class of bulb?" thread in the Mandelbulb Renderings subforum has all the maths details and some C++ source code for the CPU.

Christian

can u upload the file here ?! because download is not permitted on the site, and user accounts are hard to get :/

You currently don't allow zip file attachments, that's the problem - and the 256kb attachment limit only allows for small apps to be posted (Voxel plancton might just fit in)

i will check the settings for attachments right now

i am now allowing attachments up to 2mb, and a total of 5 mb per posting, and zip and rar files :D  :police: :police:

executables are not allowed! :police:

Ok, but there is an .EXE inside the ZIP file for those who don't have the CUDA SDK and Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 or 2008 installed. There might be a dependency on the Visual C++ 2005 and/or 2008 runtimes (which are 5 MB downloads that you can get from the Microsoft site). A free tool called "dependency walker" helps to identify the missing DLLs (if any).

Relatively recent nVidia drivers are also required (any 190.xxx, 191.xxx or 195.xxx drivers should be OK). Mind that CUDA is a vendor specific technology, so those with Intel or ATI cards have to look for fun elsewhere ;)

Thanks for the notice and the download.  I will give it a try as soon as I get a spare moment.     :D