This page lists some excellent software for Fractals, IFS, L-systems.
Fractals are mathematical objects whose graphs are bizarrely appealing.
For some elementary understanding of The Mandelbrot Set, see Mandelbrot Set.
These are a type of fractal that iterates a function and see if it converges.
above: Fractal Domain by Denis C De Mars ( full size )
★ Fractal Domain is one of the best fractal program on the Mac as of 2003. It can plot Mandelbrot and Julia sets, but also arbitrary formula for Ratinoal, Newton, Harley types of fractals. It has a color map editor, and also parameter adjustments such as dwell value and orbit. It comes with a comprehensive documentation that explains the basic math of various fractal types and the program details. Author is Dennis C De Mars. Mac OS X native and Classic. http://www.fractaldomains.com/ (2003-10,2006-06) OSXMac
★ Xaos is a real-time fractal zoomer. GNU FreeSoftware. Download at: http://xaos.sourceforge.net/. OSX Win Linux
★ MandelbrotOrbits2 A fantastic java applet that shows the orbit of a point of the Mandelbrot set. Move your mouse anywhere on the screen, and it shows the orbits of that point. Author is David Eck. http://math.hws.edu/xJava/MB/index.html (2006-07,) Java
★ MandelbrotHP This is a Java applet that draws Mandelbrot set to arbitrary precision. Author is David Eck↗ . Get the program here: MandelbrotHP.jar Get the source code here: MandelbrotHP_July_2006.zip (used with permission) (2006-07,) Java
above: Gosper's flowsnake, Plant, Cantor's plane-filling curve, modeled thru L-Systems.
L-system↗ is a string-rewriting system that can model recursive processes such as recursive geometric transformation.
A excellent tutorial can be found at Fractint L-Systems Tutorial (1997-01) by William McWorter, http://spanky.triumf.ca/www/fractint/lsys/tutor.html.
above: Koch Toy by Jim Burgess and Vactal by Viktor Massalogin. Excellence in simplicity.
★ Koch Toy by Jim Burgess is another excellent simple program. It draws simple fractal curves like that of Koch snowflake. User drag points on a line and immediately see its effects after n iterations. The number of kinks can be adjusted by dragging the nodes. Clicking on a arrow button increase or decrease recursion depth. Home page: http://www.efn.org/~jcburg/software.shtml Mac (2003-10)
★ Vectal draws simple fractal curves like that of Koch snowflake. User drag points on a line and immediately see its effects after n iterations. One feature of Vectal not in the mac Koch Toy is that user can change the sidedness of the fractal on each line. http://www.hot.ee/bntren/Program.html Win (2003-10)
