Hello from Switzerland! :D

[elphinstone]

Hi to everyone!

I live in the Swiss alps and I'm studying computer science in Zürich. I love cats and I play the piano.
I've always been fascinated from computer graphics. My main interests are procedural world generation and fractals. This sbecause I'm lazy and I prefer to tell my computer how to draw beautiful images instead of model everything myself I'm currently writing a generic raytracer and just started to focus on 3D fractals. As soon as I get some decent result I want to optimize everything for SIMD and GPU.

I'm really impressed about this community. I hope to find the knowledges I need and, as soon as possible, to start helping other people who, like me, want to explore this wonderful mathematical world!

[Sockratease]

Hello and welcome to the forums!

Feel free to share any of your work you like.  Maybe even save some of the best pieces for our Annual Contest - Coming up Soon   

[eiffie]

Nice to see another programmer on board. Ask any questions you like and maybe we know the answer - maybe not. Everyone is waiting for someone with the energy to write an app that does hybrid fractals from a GUI selection using all available resources (CPU, GPU, networked etc).

[cKleinhuis]

lol, well spoken eiffie
hello and welcome to the forums!

[elphinstone]

Nice to see another programmer on board. Ask any questions you like and maybe we know the answer - maybe not. Everyone is waiting for someone with the energy to write an app that does hybrid fractals from a GUI selection using all available resources (CPU, GPU, networked etc).

Wow, I thought I was just reinventing the wheel. Using all available resources looks to me as a basic requirement... Really? Isn't there something that already do this?
Well, if there is something that current software don't do just ask for it!

So, first question: I'm motivated for writing something useful to other peolpe, but I need to know what people need. Where should I start posting / asking?

[Holgram]

wow, great to see a motivated programmer(unlike some of my friends).
can't wait to see some of the programming you produce.
yes, the efficient and full utilization of all resources of the computers in the network would be great.

[elphinstone]

So, it looks like I'm getting somewhere... distributed computing over multiple computers doesn't look too hard. What I'm still trying to figure out is how to handle support for different system categories (basic, SSE capable, CUDA capable, ...). Lot of work but I think I'll manage to do it. It will take a couple of months since I'm busy with the school, but I want to release a demo as soon as possible because I want to understand if what I'm doing is really useful or if it's just a bad copy of already existing softwares.

Since my knowledges in the fractal world are very basic I'm probably going to need help.

• Can someone list me (or give a GOOD link where I can find these informations) the major 3D fractals categories? Expecially I still don't understand the concept of "Hybrid fractal".
• Is someone interested in writing/collect the scripts (formulas, DE,...) of the main fractals? Even if just in pseudocode, I can then translate them to the specific languages (GPU, SSE,...)

Of course your help will be mentioned!
Thank you!

[cKleinhuis]

hi there, i have a short explanation of the hybrids here: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/rRkWpB8oUwE&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/rRkWpB8oUwE&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>
besides, the main thing such a networking program needs to have: an arbitrary precision number system, with that you could read ultrafractal
5 formula files, which pretty much describe how a iteration process works, for building a 3d renderer you need a 3vector as number

[Syntopia]

So, it looks like I'm getting somewhere... distributed computing over multiple computers doesn't look too hard. What I'm still trying to figure out is how to handle support for different system categories (basic, SSE capable, CUDA capable, ...). Lot of work but I think I'll manage to do it. It will take a couple of months since I'm busy with the school, but I want to release a demo as soon as possible because I want to understand if what I'm doing is really useful or if it's just a bad copy of already existing softwares.

Since my knowledges in the fractal world are very basic I'm probably going to need help.

• Can someone list me (or give a GOOD link where I can find these informations) the major 3D fractals categories? Expecially I still don't understand the concept of "Hybrid fractal".
• Is someone interested in writing/collect the scripts (formulas, DE,...) of the main fractals? Even if just in pseudocode, I can then translate them to the specific languages (GPU, SSE,...)

Of course your help will be mentioned!
Thank you!

It sound like an ambitious project you are starting!

The most common fractals may be found in the Fragmentarium examples:
https://github.com/Syntopia/Fragmentarium/tree/master/Fragmentarium-Source/Examples

The ones I consider the "classics" are:
Mandelbulb
Mandelbox
Quaternion Julia 4D
Kaleidoscopic IFS (especially the platonic solids base forms: Tetra, Cube/Menger, Octa, Dodeca, Icosa)
PseudoKleinian

[eiffie]

You might want to look at OpenCL rather than writing seperate code for CPU/GPU.

I will suggest another item - user defined formulas. If you want your software to really be benificial to those interested in fractal formulas. It will also save you some work - let the community fill in the formula database for you.

You will find some helpers here - it is hard to know what you need to start but when you start digging into it you will have some specific questions for us I'm sure.

[cKleinhuis]

yes, arbitrary precision and formula parser a a must have for network renderin

[David Makin]

If you want to be really ambitious then the ultimate fractal program would allow escape-time rendering of an IFS-style tree of functions where the transform/function in each node could be different in every case
Of course the user-interface and distance estimation for this would be a bit complicated but it's a bit like mixing CSG trees with escape-time fractal methods...

[elphinstone]

cKleinhuis: Your videos are awesome, I'm slowly trying to watch them all. I like how you are able to give clear explanations in a funny way! Vielen Dank!

eiffie: Thank you for the advices, OpenCL really seems to be a natural choice. Just discovered it also supports online compilation, this is perfect for compiling fast code from formula scripts at runtime! I don't know why I didn't think about it before! (Oh.. yes I know, it's because I'm a Nvidia fanboy ).

David: Ok, my next ambition is to undestand what you are talking about  Sorry but at the moment this is beyond my knowledges. I have some understanding about IFS and escape time, but I cannot see how you want to combine everything togheter. Any source where I can learn about that?

For the rest: I also believe that arbitrary precision is needed, but it's a lot of work and would introduce a big slowdown. It's something I'll think about later.

Ok, I think I have to cool down a bit with coding and get a better idea of what (and how) to do. Luckily this forum seems to have a lot of resources!
Thank you all for the advices!

PS. I take this opportunity to thank Syntopia too. Before jumping in this forum I spend whole weeks reading all your posts in your blog!

[eiffie]

Dave - once I started writing a GUI for my simple renderer but after realizing all the different ways there are to combine formulas the GUI was becoming more complicated then hand coding each. It IS a great idea and probably something to keep in mind but I suggest starting "simple" with an interface like MB3D.

Elf - if you get a chance to work on this how about starting a project on google code, sourceforge etc. I think there are a few coders who would like to help.

[Alef]

I think, Switzerland could be the moust beautifull country in Europa. Grundelwald, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, every town is worth to visit. Maybe Monaco is more beautifull, but it's not a full state and they don't have MCdonnalds.

Well, it would be nice, if there would be some assambler programmer with hex editor. Its sounds as xacking, but it's how Mandelbulb3D fractal formulas are written, and there are some formulas, say mandelex, which aren't there.

Making new 3D fractal raytracer with features of both Mandelbulb3D and Fragmentarium don't sounds as easy task, sounds more like for a team.

 Actualy most of 3D fractals are of same type, or could I say, use same engine. Main difference are brute force or DE. There are 3D strange attractors, you can alsou hybridise - combine them together, but none uses them;) Try to look Mandelbulb3D, Fragmentarium, Chaos Pro.