Sunday, August 25, 2013

How to Fold a JuliaSet

I wrote a JuliaSet animation way back when, that would use a Lissajou curve through the parameter space defining the curves and then draw / erase the resulting fractals.  With color effects, it was quite fun to watch even on a 4.77 MHz PC.

So I was reminded when I saw this very nice WebGL-based animation describing how Julia Sets are generated.  [Note that you really need to view this site in Chrome or Firefox to get the full effect, as it requires WebGL].  If you've only vaguely understood how the Mandelbrot set is produces, or the relationship between Mandelbrot and Julia sets, then it is worth stepping through the visuals to get a very nice description of the complex math that is used and how the iterations actually produce the fractals.
Plus the animated plot points look a lot like my old JuliaB code, but its too bad you can't interactively change the plot points.

Onnx