Create a 3D fractal generator program from scratch, what will it take?

[ac4937]

I am interested in learning how to create a fractal program from scratch and was wondering how to go about it. 
Some more specific questions I have are how to utilize ray tracing in an efficient way when computing the fractals as well as the ideal language to write such a program in.
Thanks!

[hobold]

From where are you starting? If you never wrote a program before, allow your self some time to learn the ropes. If you never programmed 3D graphics, you will first need to understand a few mathematical tools for the required geometry.

If you programmed a raytracer before, then you will find the so-called "distance estimated" fractals are fairly easy to add. All the fractal
specialties can be concentrated in the object's intersectRay() method, leaving the rest of the raytracer unchanged. (That's not the fastest software architecture, but a very good starting point.)

The best programming language is hard to decide. Any language you are familiar with is probably better than a language new to you - unless you specifically want to learn a new language. Object Orientation is usually good for a traditional raytracer (the concept matches the algorithm). A system programming language is usually good for speed. I daresay most fully featured ray tracers were implemented in C++, but that is only a guess.

If you hope to eventually reach perfection with your fractal renderer, you might probably end up with GPGPU ("general purpose graphics processing unit") programming. That means a few innermost loops would have to be programmed in some specialized language, such as CUDA, OpenCL, or GLSL, which are all dialects of C.

[DarkBeam]

Three years if you are very good