M1Maths |
FRACTAL ARTFree Fractal Art       Other Fractal Art       How Fractal Art is Made |
Free Fractal ArtThe images below are public domain or creative commons, so can be downloaded, stored and re-published. You may need to acknowledge them if you re-publish them. Click on a thumbnail to be taken to the source site for a full-size image. |
How Fractal Art is Made |
The basic way to produce fractals is to choose an iterative operation to be performed on complex numbers, e.g. square it and add 0.6. Then, for each point (complex number) near the origin of the complex plane, keep performing that operation until the result is more than a set distance (e.g. 2) from the origin (the point 0 + 0i). Then colour the starting point according to the number of iterations taken, using a chosen relation between number of iterations and colour. For many operations, a fractal pattern will emarge. Of course, because of the huge number of operations required, fractals must be computer-generated. Some art superimposes fractal patterns and/or modifies the resulting picture in other ways. A fuller explanation can be found in the M1Maths module |