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I'm looking for a simple voxel ''building'' software which can handle large structures so that I can experiment with creating simple fractals.

Any idea what software I could use?

Sorry I can't help you with this, but I second your quest for such software.

(When I wanted to try out some 3D DLA, I wrote a script to create an STL file. Yeah, just like the result of a CAD program. Of course you couldn't 3D print the results even if you wanted, and they have no practical purpose, but that's what I could do without the right software.)

Here are my results:
http://www.fractalforums.com/fractals-in-nature/quick-and-dirty-a-dla-variation/msg93737/#msg93737

Thanks, thats is an interesting topic.

I have found something which might work:
https://github.com/guillaumechereau/goxel

But I can't get it to work. (I have never even downloaded anything from github)

You can usw mandelbulb3d for this, See Herr for instructions : http://www.instructables.com/id/Create-a-3D-printed-3D-fractal/ this will also be possible with next Version of mandelbulber (2.0.8)

the idea is to render slices of a volume as a black and white image stack. This image stack can be imported by fiji and made to a proper obj file.
Post processing is done in meshlab (remove holes / simplification / ...).
Then you can use the object in blender for rendering, or make a 3d print of it. is this what you had in mind?

btw: next version of mandelbulber with this functionality will be ready in 1-2 weeks  O0

Zebastian, thank you for your suggestion.

Im not sure whether that is what I am looking for.
I was thinking of a draw-copy-paste type of creating fractals.
Like this:
http://www.fractalforums.com/images-showcase-(rate-my-fractal)/fractal-universe's-gallery
But with voxels instead of pixels.

http://voxelizer.com/welcome/

This might be a good software.

In principle every package with sculpting features should do, because they use voxels. Most famous is ZBrush, but Blender has simillar features.
I hope, u have enough memory on board...

That sounds great, Thank you.

I guess it will indeed require a good pc. (Well thats another reason to hurry up with cleaning my server case.)

Ive played around with blender for a while but it still seems to be too advanced and complicated if you are just trying add, copy, paste and move around voxels.

indeed blender is not for the faint hearted  :dink: But, succeeding without work is an approach, that mostly fails.

You're right.

I almost have this working.

I have been able to get goxel working. It is a simple but nice program to use for this. And yes, you need a lot of memory to make these.

My problem with these voxel softwares is that they was made to a different task, not 3D fractal visualization, but visualization of oblejects with a smooth/connected surface. In contrast, if you generate fractals, you have a set of points with X,Y,Z coordinates, and the software have to define a continuous surface on them. This is the difficult part of the task.

I also played with voxels before: created .obj files (it has a simple file structure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefront_.obj_file (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefront_.obj_file)), represented voxels with cubes, but the preblem was the following: I had only 6 different directions of surfaces. Eg. there were no contrast between neighboring surfaces (resulted "LEGO-style" images):
http://www.fractalforums.com/3d-fractal-generation/new-3d-mandelbrot-formula-(-orangeman-)/ (http://www.fractalforums.com/3d-fractal-generation/new-3d-mandelbrot-formula-(-orangeman-)/)
(http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=7272.0;attach=5199;image)

I'm looking for a software that can create something similar:
(https://i0.wp.com/bugman123.com/Hypercomplex/Julia0110.jpg)

(http://www.dhushara.com/DarkHeart/appendix2_files/image167.jpg)

Looks interesting.

Yes, that is still a problem with simple voxel editors. I have tried to find better ones but this one seems to be the most practical one to use. It actually has an option to double the number of polygons to make structures a little nicer but since they are made by hand and not by formula and the resolution of them is very low it is just a project just for fun. But I can ask for better rendering options, it is an open source program.

The main "problem" (or feature :D ) of 3D fractals that these don't contains poligons, only points. But a voxel software doesn't have to create poligons on a set of points. This is task for a fractal software.

True, it might be umconventional but it is the specific thing I was looking for.

Take a look at my hobby-project, StyrofoamIFS

http://phtolo.se/fractals/index.htm

It only handles IFS fractals but it can create arbitrarily large point-clouds.

Thank you, I will do that once I have my 64bit machine working.

Wow, this IS what we need here! Could you complement this with an import function? I think about a set of points in a .txt file in ASCII format: X; Y; Z coordinates in 3 columns, separated by semicolon or something...

There is a outputformat command for .scene files that creates text-files. (Last in the manual page for .scene files)

Oh, good. And can it read them back?

wow! this is a fascinating gallery (and hobby-tool!!) you have there, phtolo!

Your barnsley fern with the added rotation looks so much like this is the way to 'generate' romanesco! is this that is the difference? fern 2d, romanesco 3d, with added rotation?
(http://phtolo.se/fractals/gallery/fern.gif)
does your program has a 'readable formula'? I'd love to see the text/math form of romanesco broccoli!

(hope you don't mind embedding the gif here? I'll remove it if you have to look for bandwidth)

Wow that looks amazing. I can not wait to start experimenting.

I see your point now, it can't be done now, but I'll look into it, give me a day or two.


Thank you :)
The fractals are defined using a text editor so they are very much readable.
See here regarding your romanesco related thoughts:
http://www.fractalforums.com/ifs-iterated-function-systems/3d-barnsley-ferns-and-firs/15/


Thank you :)

The gif is okay, I have no problems with it. It shows a great example of what the program can do.


Just in general, if other people do have issues with it, please let us know.

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I'm curious, would it be possible to make a 32bit version?

:joy: I would be really happy with that; I was looking for something similar a long time ago. Cheers!
A 32 bit version would also be useful indeed.

Theres a new version now that can read .xyz files.
I haven't updated the manual yet, but it reads the formats that it can create.
Put the .xyz files in the ifs folder and select them as any .ifs file.

I'll take a look at a 32-bit version tomorrow.

You are awesome! I can't wait for the 32 bit version! :)

These pictures & animations are great, definitely. Thanks for discovering this software. Now I wonder what else we can do with it...

Now theres a 32-bit version too.

Same link as before:
http://phtolo.se/fractals/index.htm

Thank you.

Tank you!

Unfortunately I got "Error! OpenCL not found!" message on Log tab.

Seems you need to upgrade your graphics drivers, later graphics drivers include it automatically.
Make sure it supports OpenCL version 1.1.

Hmm.. I am having the same problem. Oh well, I'll have to wait untill I can use my other (win64) computer with a better gpu.

Thanks

Thanks for publishing your source, Per! I look forward to checking it out and seeing how far it's come since we met at the Fractal Art Symposium in 2014  O0

Meanwhile, I tried it out and found a crashbug: from the OpenCL platforms, I try to select Nvidia's CUDA which on my computer (also used for OpenCL development) is the 3rd platform, and get the following crash info:

Thanks for testing the software Thomas!

My computer has broken down and I'm in the process of buying a new one, so can't investigate at the moment.

I have an idea what might cause it (using Cloo, which is a discontinued OpenCL wrapper for .NET, to fill out the dialogboxes, probably need to switch to something more recent) but it will have to wait for a while.

Finally fixed the crash...

Got a new computer and it turns out the timings of the OpenCL parts on nVidia are weird.
The results are the same but occasionally the kernel takes 10x the time and I have no clue why yet.