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Hi,

I'd like to share an experiment at 3d printing a fractal. I didn't print an honest 3d fractal, but rather a 2d dense Julia set, used as a heightmap on the sphere. The details can be found in this blog post:
http://algorithmic-worlds.net/blog/blog.php?Post=20120616
To summarize, the limit on the number of polygons and the fact that anything but very small objects are quite expensive both limit the amount of details in the final sculpture. Still, I find the result interesting, and it's fun to be able to have it in your hand. I printed it as a thin shell, what reduced the cost and leaves it translucent, creating a nice effect when a LED candle is put inside.

A gallery of photos can be found here:
https://plus.google.com/photos/115812520028631520069/albums/5754708131010277633
Here are also rendered (not 3d printed) 3d models of dense Julia sets used as heightmaps:
https://plus.google.com/photos/115812520028631520069/albums/5754704767791106417

Attached are two pictures of the 3d printed model, the second one with a LED candle inside.

Sam

Sure, you can't compare it to the rendered 3d models, the latter are textured, in addition. I picked the simplest pattern because I was afraid it would look messy with the low polygon count. I'll make a few more attempts...

I never used fragmentarium beyond a short try. But more generally, it seems to me that raytracing softwares are useless when it comes to 3d printing, because you need the 3d model as a mesh. In my case it was rather simple to produce the mesh, because it's just a deformed sphere. For genuine 3d fractals, I can imagine it would be much more difficult to produce a mesh suitable for printing.

Sam