Welcome to Fractal Forums

While reading the current discussions on the UF mailing list, and some links that were provided about the definition of fractals and fractal art, I was flabbergasted (:dink:) by the fact that there are heavy references to 2D art, and that very few (no one?) are considering that the current trend set up since a few years in 3D fractals and especially since the "invention/discovery" of the bulb last year and subsequently of the box earlier this year, is simply and purely revolutionizing fractal art. So I just googled to see what are the best fractal images ever made, and now I'm asking the community:

What is your favorite fractal image ever? The one you would choose if you had to select only one to put on the wall in your living room, the one you would take on a desert island, the one you would show to ETs to explain how beautiful and fascinating fractals are? Please post only one link.

To me (and today, because it might change tomorrow as I feel it's moving so fast nowadays) it would be maybe "Furnace" by Aexion, even though it's not a product of the bulb/box trend:

(http://jasonbergman.me/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/furnace_by_aexion.jpg)

Related question to those who have the longest experience, or a crystal ball: what will be the next revolution ? realtime 3D fractal navigation on your 3D personal TV? :alien:

Gosh, my favourite at the moment is this one, but there are many many close seconds.
(http://www.fractalforums.com/gallery/3/1127_09_09_10_7_30_02.jpeg)
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=3447 (http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=3447)
Mainly because it expresses the most interesting thing about 3d fractals, that you can get right inside them, I don't think 3d fractals were made to be looked at from a distance. For me no other picture has as strong feeling of being deep and lost in a different world.
I also like the constrasts, its alien but familiar, spooky but cartoony, fractal but smooth, art but pure maths.

Next revolution? I don't know but fractally animated fractals would be cool, if you put the fold position or angle on a sine wave and scale the frequency each iteration then it would animate fractally, the big structures oscillate slowly and the tiny ones vibrate quickly. The problem is getting it to preserve volume.

Difficult to choose!
(http://www.fractalforums.com/gallery/2/1284_08_07_10_2_16_05.jpeg)

It's already possible. O0

A 3d fractal explorer toy will be part of any 3d tv firmware, given a couple of revs of gpu hardware  :alien:

But yes, hooking up something like boxplorer running on a regular 5850 already gives realtime 3d on my tv, today.

OK, I'm biased, but I don't care !

Here's my favourite 3D fractal image, pre-Mandelbulb/box created in 2007 using old-style escape-time 3D IFS:

(http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs23/f/2008/004/e/e/Sierpinski_Temple_detail_by_MakinMagic.jpg) (http://makinmagic.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d17wrec)

And here's my favourite post-Mandelbulb/box:

(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/101/6/8/Living_Gold_by_MakinMagic.jpg) (http://makinmagic.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2ninb7)

And my favourite 2D fractal (actually 2D escape-time IFS):

(http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs51/f/2009/259/6/4/Jules_Verne__s_Journey_by_MakinMagic.jpg) (http://makinmagic.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d29pvxh)

David, I said ONE image :):)

I would like this thread to represent what the fractal fanatics think is the state of the art as today. Folks, please submit more!

My favorite fractal image is one that I made years ago, using Chaoscope.

(http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m278/sockratease/topsyturvy2.jpg)

It just has a playful mood and feel to it unlike nearly any other fractal image I've done or seen.

To me, it even tells a story about flying fruits with leaf wings playing a game where they race through the frilly hoops in quest of winning the ...  whatever it is that they win in a competition like this!

It's possibly more of a Strange Attractor than a Fractal, but I never cared for such minor distinctions.  It's a Fractal to me!

I've always wanted to animate this somehow - probably like Terry Gilliam did, using cut-outs.  It would make a great cartoon!

Here are the Mandelbulb 3D parameters for the image of mine Knighty choosed. (Very honoured, thanks).  Colors/light are only approximate as I've retweaked them quickly since I did it originally in an older version and they came up differently in the latest build.

Mandelbulb3Dv16{
I.....S....O/...w.........UPLVRxc7YbzuEtQ0agf.xDlGftyQL5qy1aN7Zwr4dCzmqjy7u3DmvD
................................ZmOVZHLf4/2........Y./..................C/2.....
.....0.........U..E//....6EH/...h1....E......Iwfx.0jnalD/..........c./...w1.BnAH
z.URBOhD..../..........wz.......................................................
........V/QFQqc.ppfGOyiBfuo5zI3QqtRbZaYjLV4N2gqLQwXinhGkzpOByizSRQZjrdkjD4OJNtvR
8wvNHW4BstnFyWF116kOTllj...../oR..........................kz....................
.............................Ulx57.erTY.sUzF0UAy57.KtTY.cbzF0Uby57..............
................e0.........U..6......Q1...EB..........2...E4....T....I1....UPE1.
..kTzhBgrxzqkSrzP1vRzjBgrx5.bc..zzzz.g5MarH7iXyDEG1bJT60lz1...........EA8.klLS4.
QvM93P58izPZKWugHVQxz0........../2X0.wzzz1................................E.lc..
zzzz.................................2U.8.kzzzD.................................
/6U0.wzzz1.....................................U.1.sU06.eeWupa1.j9Df.EJJC0MQ.wAq
F1.mxt6Ul/knM5B.QsbX.45.DXRo..bTC0MQ.wAqF1.lyt6Ul/knM5B.MwbX.45.DXRo.kqTC0MQ.wAq
F1.kzt6Ul/knM5B......0A.eeWupa1.IJZX.45.szbX.45.................................
E....6....E/....a....c....EGXxqQVVKNY7rPiZYFH/............................U/4MU/
4M...................F8xLitRXbyDVJJJJJJJ3zHMJJJJJJJlz...........................
................................................................................
.....................2...../....1....2IPVdLOiR460x4S............................
.Qk0..........................zD........Uz1........wz...........................
................................................................................
................................}

As for my favorite, there are really many I like, but let's pick this one from MarkJayBee for the sake of this thread:

(http://www.fractalforums.com/gallery/2/2025_28_06_10_8_17_33.jpeg)

:) I know - but I guess I was trying to make the point that interesting 3D fractals did exist pre-mandelbox/mandelbulb plus I thought that at least one image in the thread should be 2D rather than 3D.

If you want "state of the art" today then I think really the thread should be about 3D animated fractals rather than still images.
So far I think Buddhi is the best at doing these, here's his latest which in formula terms is pretty much state of the art since it's a hybrid formula:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E91yxk_pT_A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E91yxk_pT_A)

I wish I had the time/patience to do these myself but this heap-o-junk (P4HT) simply isn't up to the task, it takes far to long to set up a decent animation even using the various custom bulb/box/kifs programs.

Oh yeah - forgot my hopes for the Future of Fractal Generation!

I hope to see the day where all 3D Fractal Generators can easily output 3D Models!  (Hint to Jesse and Buddhi :D )  Preferably in obj format, but any of the other popular and nearly universal formats would do  (3ds, lwo, dae, even stp, dxf, bvh, or just about anything but pov  -  I never could get the hang of povray and it's format does NOT play well with other software;  there isn't even any simple way I have been able to find for converting a .pov file (like ChaosPro can export) to an obj file!).  

I'd also like these exports to be able to do strictly surface geometry.  I've found that even Xenodream exports geometry which has lots of polygons nested inside the "main" structure.  This makes the models of absurdly high polygon count and near useless for most work in 3D Software like Carrara, Bryce, Blender, and even the Big Boys like Cinema 4D, 3D Studio Max, etc.

"State of The Art" is not important to me when choosing "Favorites"   O0

The latest Incendia exports 3D objects in stl format in case you weren't aware, Sockratease.  :dink:

And Crossroads is supposed to convert from pov to a variety of formats according to what I see in the open and save dialogs (never tried it for that though so can't comment if or how well it works).

Thanks!

I have been struggling to get incendia running on any of my systems - it just wont cooperate   :-\

Never heard of Crossroads though.  I'll have to look it up... I tried poseray, meant for conversion to and from Poser format  (which Carrara can import) - but no luck.

Really? That's surprising, since it runs without problems on my Windows ME system I would have imagined it runs on everything else just as well. Unless you are on Linux perhaps and it doesn't play well with Wine??

very tough question; being that I do not like having to commit to things for too long!  :-\
I will love "my flavor of the month" then move on.

Tried it on Vista (2 different flavors) and on my Mac using Crossover (WINE with a few extras  :dink: ).

I have some older 'puters...  have to try it on those!  Vista is notorious for being ...  Strange  :alien:

I stumbled across this topic and it needs to be revived! To me, this is the best one ever:

(http://nocache-nocookies.digitalgott.com/gallery/2/2499_16_07_10_12_55_50.jpeg)

And although I have to admit that I'm fickle, this one's been on my short list for quite a while now. Maybe forever. Maybe even definitely forever...