QBIX - cubic Mandelbrot set deep zoom animation

[HPDZ]

Finally, after months of work and delays, my new cubic deep-zoom animation is done! This zooms to a final size of 5.9e-33 and uses frame interpolation techniques to create 5000 video frames at 960x540 from 181 larger master images. This is the first video rendered with my new 64-bit high-precision arithmetic code, which resulted in significant speed improvements over the previous SSE2-based code.

The web site link is here: www.hpdz.net/Animations/Qbix.htm. High-definition, 10Mbps-encoded MP4 and WMV files can be downloaded from the web site.

and here it is on YouTube if you need instant gratification:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/uDWjd_1ICpM&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/uDWjd_1ICpM&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>
Try switching to 480p playback; the original video uploaded to YouTube was 960x540 at 10Mbps.

[Sockratease]

Pretty.

I thought you were reporting impressive render times from your interpolation technique before...  now they're Faster?

When will we get to play?  Do you plan a release of some sort of program?

[HPDZ]

Thanks. Glad you like it.

The frame interpolation component of my software was not changed for this particular project, just the core arithmetic code. I converted it to use the 64-bit instruction set. That cut down the number of instructions by over 50% and reduced the number of memory accesses as well, since in 64-bit mode the CPU has a bunch more registers available. The time savings -- and the grief of this adventure -- is described on www.hpdz.net/TechInfo_64bits.htm.

I probably won't be releasing the software any time soon. It's really not fit for public consumption. It's got some slick code in it, but in terms of its user interface, well, it's like a big V-12 engine bolted to a bench in a lab with a bunch of wires and hoses running all over the place.

[cKleinhuis]

i would like to try the zoom interpolation method mit 3d bulbs, would that be appliable?

[HPDZ]

I will admit I am very inexperienced with 3D graphics techniques, but my initial impression is that the frame interpolation technique can probably be applied to the 3D case. Just calculate the 3D image to a higher number of voxels, then use the same kind of interpolation techniques in 3D that you would use in 2D to generate the video frames from the high-resolution master image.

However, the economics of the computation saving may not be as favorable in 3 dimensions as they are in 2 dimensions. To have a net saving in computation time, in the very simplest analysis, the condition

                 

has to be true, where n is the number of dimensions, M is the number of video frames between master images, and b is the magnification ratio of video frames spanned by a particular master image (always greater than 1). That gets harder to do as n gets bigger.

This technique, by the way, is nothing new. It was described by Peitgen in The Science of Fractal Images, pp 214-218. I believe it's used in several commercial fractal programs.

[reesej2]

Beautiful! How long DID it take to render all of that?

[HPDZ]

It took just under 200 hours on a 2.4 GHz quad-core Core2 system to make the 181 master images, each of which is about 1805x1019 pixels (some are 1 or 2 pixels less in each direction).

[kram1032]

really beautiful

[HPDZ]

Thanks, kram1032.

[aluminumstudios]

That's really beautiful.  I always look forward to your new works.

I read on your site about moving over to 64 bit and such.  It sounds like it was quite a challenge but worth it!

[teamfresh]

I loved it. very nice

[cbuchner1]

www.hpdz.net/TechInfo_64bit.htm.

that link appears to be broken

[aluminumstudios]

www.hpdz.net/TechInfo_64bit.htm.

that link appears to be broken

There is a link from his QBIX page that works:  http://www.hpdz.net/TechInfo_64bits.htm

[HPDZ]

Sorry for the broken link. I fixed it in the post above.

It does make good reading -- I documented a lot of practical details I had to suffer through as I migrated not only to Windows 7, but also to recompiling for x64 this old 32-bit C++ application with heavy use of inline assembly code. Anyone thinking of porting code to x64 might find this page useful.

[teamfresh]

the more i watch it the more i like it.