Hi from Miqel - fractal geek/artist for 20+ yrs

[miqel]

Hello Fractal Forums!
My name is Michael Coleman & I'm located in Nashville TN. I've loved this site for years but just recently got into using Mandelbulber and felt like it would be a good time to join. It's fun to talk, learn & share with other fractal fanatics and being on the forum seems like the best way to keep better track of the new advances in fractal imaging.

Some of you may have come across my site on the interwebs, due to some weird luck I've had the #2 Google result for the search term 'Natural Fractals' for a few years, as well as first-page returns for quite a few other fractal related searches.

Here's the link to my Fractal/Math Pattern information pages
http://www.miqel.com/fractals_math_patterns/visual_math_varieties.html
and to my personal gallery of Mandelbrot pics
http://www.miqel.com/miqel_data/art/fractal_art_image_gallery.html
and the 'Visual Guide to Mandelbrot patterns' i've been working on
http://www.miqel.com/fractals_math_patterns/mandelbrot_fractal_guide.html

It's so great to visit these forums and see the amazing work on display - this is where the cutting edge of fractal art happens!
I was introduced to fractals around 1989 by a friend who had recently obtained FRACTINT. The colors and form immediately captured my attention and I became fascinated with learning how such images could arise from simple equations. They also reminded me of patterns i'd seen in my mind's eye on 'magic' mushroom trips, it was shocking that they had a mathematical origin. We were using an early PC 386 computer (or worse) and it sometimes took between 5 and 20 hours to render a 256 color 800x600 Mandelbrot!
Later I read James Gleck's classic book "Chaos", as well as "Turbulent Mirror" and some of the fractal books by Clifford Pickover. The main motivation to get my first computer was to be able to run Fractint
Later KPT came out with the "Fraxplorer" plug-in for Photoshop. This program had the feature i'd always wanted - Real-Time Zoom !!! So i spent endless hours traveling around the Mandelbrot Set and learning how to mix & match patterns. Unfortunately Fraxplorer doesn't save coordinates, so all those 1000's of journeys are to places i'll likely never find again.
Recently i began using Mandelbulber to explore the bulb as well as the Mandelbox (especially -1.3 thu -1., which is presently my favorite place to explore. I consider my fractal art to be a form of mathematical nature-photography ... I like to go exploring and document what lies in the wilderness between dimensions.  

So yeah, anyhow that's my intro! Thanks for reading
~Miqel


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[bib]

Hey Miqel,

Warm welcome. Your website has been linked several times from here, and I really find it very complete and fantastic.

Thanks for joining fractalforums, it's a pleasure to have you on board!

Cheers  

[cKleinhuis]

hello and welcome to the forums!
be sure to check out "mandelbulb3d" as well!
your site has indeed been linked many times, especially for that photography:
http://www.miqel.com/images_1/fractal_math_patterns/mandelbrot-set/mandelbrot_tattoo.jpg
you know her ?

your site has a tremendous insight for fractal facts and places to explore on the mandelbrot, it is a huge site, really nice to have ya on board as well!
regards!

  <- the beer seems to really greatly improve the smileys section

[miqel]

@Bib - Thanks! Glad to be here & thanks for the website compliment

@Trifox - i'm still in 'Kid with a new toy' mode on Mandelbulber, but as soon as the novelty starts to wear off i'll definitely try Mandelbulb3d!  I WISH I knew the girl w/ a Mandelbrot tattoo! I found the pic linked to Pickover's "Reality Carnival' blog. It seems probable that technology is not far from creating a computer controlled tattoo machine, which could render photo quality fractals on a complex surface like skin. Maybe in the next 10 years?
Thanks for the words about my site, looking at it I can see a lot of things which could be improved .. just need to find the time to do it
BTW, if anyone notices their images used on there without credit, please contact me & I will fix it & provide backlinks if you want. I used some photos from Google images that originated here but didn't save the artist info for some of them.