Simulation of erosion

[Max Sinister]

Since I thought about fractals in higher dimensions (as in, 4D including development in time etc.) in one of my recent posts, I also thought about this.

Are there programs which can simulate the erosion of shapes, like a fractal mountain, or a Menger sponge? Maybe someone among you already did this?

Or do you dislike this, because it destroys beautiful shapes?

[bkercso]

Erosion by what? Air? Fast flow of water? Slow flow of water? Turbulent flow of water? Temperature fluctuations? Tectonic motion?

[JohnVV]

there is a FORTRAN 90  sim
http://erode.evsc.virginia.edu/

or a MS windows program that works well for some things
"wilbur"
http://www.fracterra.com/wilbur.html
it is a bit old

[Max Sinister]

@bkercso: For the beginning, I thought about rain, so "Slow flow of water" is probably closest.

("All of the above", with different probabilities, would be most interesting, but also hardest.)

Maybe "Breaking down under its own weight", if that's possible.

@John: Thanks for the link. It's a start.

[bkercso]

Maybe "Breaking down under its own weight", if that's possible.

It depends on the rheology model of the material. Eg. stones are not plastic, so this breaking down is not possible in the case of stones. (Recrystallization under high pressure is a different thing...)

[Max Sinister]

I don't know enough about this science. Not yet, at least.

[bkercso]

I just want to say that simulation of erosion is not a straightforward thing. It requires models for material and environmental effects.

A possible erosion of fractals is what happens if noise added to these during the iteration process.

[Max Sinister]

Noise, hm. I experimented a bit with that, but the results aren't satisfying yet. Like here:

[bkercso]

This is what I did with Mandelbrot set:
http://www.fractalforums.com/mandelbrot-and-julia-set/noisy-ifs-fractals-new-patterns/

At the end there is a video about "erosion" of the M-set.