The Mandelbulb: first 'true' 3D image of famous fractal

NewScientist.com: It may look like a piece of virtuoso knitting, but the makers of an image they call the Mandelbulb (see right) claim it is most accurate three-dimensional representation to date of the most famous fractal equation: the Mandelbrot set.

Fractal figures are generated by an "iterative" procedure: you apply an equation to a number, apply the same equation to the result and repeat that process over and over again. When the results are translated into a geometric shape, they can produce striking "self-similar" images, forms that contain the same shapes at different scales; for instance, some look uncannily like a snowflake. The tricky part is finding an equation that produces an interesting image.

The most famous fractal equation is the 2D Mandelbrot set, named after the mathematician BenoƮt Mandelbrot of Yale University, who coined the name "fractals" for the resulting shapes in 1975...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18171-the-mandelbulb-first-true-3d-image-of-famous-fractal.html

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