Fractal art

Contents

Welcome to this Fractal art page. Here are some fractals that I have made and an explanation of what fractals are. I hope that you enjoy at least some of them.

[ Some of My Fractals | What Are Fractals? | The QBasic Program ]


Some of My Fractals

Here are some fractals that I have made. I made them with a QBasic program that I made. I have tried to create some cool fractals, and you can decide for yourself whether they are or not. I hope that you find them as fascinating as I do. To view any of the full-scale pictures, click on a section of this fractal for the corresponding enlargement.

[mandel1] [mandel2] [mandel3] [mandel4] [mandel5] [mandel6] [Full Mandelbrot's Set]

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What Are Fractals?

Consider the circumference of a circle. It can be estimated by measuring the outside of the circle with a measuring stick. Using a shorter stick around the circle will give a more precise estimate of the actual circumference, which many know is equal to 2πr. Using shorter and shorter segments only increases the precision of the estimate.

Now consider the length of the coast of Britain. Shorter measuring sticks only result in increasingly larger totals. For example, using 200-mile segments causes the total to be 1600 miles. Using 25-mile segments, the result would be 2550 miles. If a 1-inch measuring stick were used, each little rock would be measured, and the total estimate would become astronomically large. In other words, Britain is a fractal.

To sum it up, a fractal curve is a curve whose estimated length becomes arbitrarily large as the measuring stick becomes smaller and smaller. Fractals are many times used to create exotic and interesting art. You can read more about fractals if you care to learn how complex numbers are involved.

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The QBasic Program

For those unfamiliar with QBasic, it's a programming language that is easy to learn and to use. I use it regularly to solve little problems or to just make spiffy graphics, like fractals.

I compiled this program with QB 4.5. You can download the program right now if you desire. To use it, you must have an IBM-compatible computer. In other words, it doesn't work on a Mac. Sometime in the near future I'll modify this program to allow Julia sets to be drawn as well.

With all that said and done now, here it is, the fractal generator: Fractal.exe

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©2001 Chris Williams.