Good bones

A little while ago, I had a strange dream in which the Fractal of the Day was gone. I don't know why this was so significant, because I hadn't looked at the FotD in a number of years, but in the dream I was very sad about it. So I went and looked, and there it was, just the same as I remembered. Since then I've been checking it occasionally, and going back through some of the older images. They are soothing in their simplicity: single layer GIFs, no anti-aliasing, and with a certain emphasis on (or at least interest in) mathematical explorations instead of aesthetic ones. At the bottom of each page, there's a set of parameters you can copy and paste into Fractint, if you want to generate the image yourself, for further exploration.

And then I remembered that Ultra Fractal has a fair amount of compatibility with Fractint, so I copied and pasted Elephant Ring. And found myself looking at a rather fascinating unknown formula, almost completely stripped of the smooth slickness I'm used to seeing. To take it even further, I removed the color as well, and had a look at the barest bones of the fractal.

I was reminded that any image starts with the most basic elements of composition: points of focus, lines or curves of emphasis, repetition of shapes, all the stuff that seemed so boring when we were freshmen. But you can't build an effective image without being aware of these underlying structures. This formula has nice ones.

untitled [dividebrot5 skeleton]



Here, the black points are inside the set, and the white points are not. As simple as that.

Pretty soon, though, I was done with minimalism, and started putting layers back on. All the good bits are still there, under the surface, making the finished picture possible. I may have gone a bit too far with lush, multicolored, excessive goop. Maximalism?

Candied Fireball



So, a big thank you to Jim Muth, for the DivideBrot5 formula, and for continuing to produce the Fractal of the Day.