My current desktop background.
Clearing some stuff out
New Feature – Download demo image
I’ve been revamping the site, working towards a more visual layout. Part of that has been going through old posts and attaching an image to every single one of them. Some of them just needed selecting an image from the content, and some needed an entirely new image generated from the demo code. In the past, that has meant capturing screenshots or uploading the image to a service like imgur.
I figured there has got to be a better way, so with a little bit of simple research, and adding some angularjs to the site, I’ve added a helpful download button to many of the javascript demos on the site. This includes the 3D Harmonic oscillator demo, and the Atomic Orbital demo as well.
While that makes things easier for me, it also makes the site much more useful in general. Now you can pick out an orientation for an atomic orbital and snap a quick shot of it however you want. Or you can build your own fractal and grab a copy of it.
I’ve also gone through the old catalog and updated pages making sure they all still work. A number of those early projects were one off simple demos. While neat, I don’t think they’ve lived up to their full potential because of the limits in parameterizing them and putting multiple copies on a single page. Now that I’m rewriting them using angularjs I’ll be able to integrate them much more richly into my writing.
I’m jonesing to take full advantage of much of the code I’ve written. I’ve only done two basic posts based on a javascript based geodesic solver I’ve written for Schwarzschild black holes. There is so much more I can do with that. I haven’t touched on the Doppler effect in the speed of sound demo, or added relativistic effects.
Related Images:
Symmetric – almost
I like this because it includes a strong two point  linear cantor set attractor with a rotation that looks like it should be symmetric, but as your look at the details, the internals are off.  Yet, the transformations are so simple the actual symmetries reveal themselves from inspection.
Related Images:
Hexagonal snowflake
This is a tighter version of the last fractal. Â The same equilateral triangle is in play with tighter compression factors. Â If you stare at it enough, you can see that the lines are still there, but the inverse grid of whitespace stands out more strongly. Â As commonly happens in these creations, the lines become obscured with the nodes that are just touching them. Â It doesn’t take much for our senses to erase the notion of lineness from our vision.
Related Images:
Hexagonal grid fractal
Replicated triangles
Faded paper
The settings for this one are very close to the last. I’ve just cranked up the scaling factor for the third transform. I love how this generates a textured effect that reminds me of weathered paper. The edges still have that same repeated pattern, though it is harder to follow in the center where everything blurs together.
One thing I wonder about is if we perceive the amount of information in these images. While these appear more diffuse and random, they have just as much pattern and rigidness as the more geometric images.
Related Images:
Fractal Grid2
The last grid introduced swirls, twists and rotations onto a “rectangular” partial grid. Â This is chopping parts out and replicating. Â Again, the simple form lets you easily find the parts that are replicated to make this image.
These static images are nice, but nothing helps get a good understanding of how the parts relate like firing up the generator and draging peices around.
Related Images:
Fractal Ruler
This one reminded me of a fractal version of the tic marks on a ruler. Â It’s up there with the minimal spiral for one of my favorite illustrations of the self similarity of fractals. Â As they become more complex, it becomes more and more difficult to make out the relationships between the different parts. Â This one being more “one” dimensional seems to make it easier to take in.
This one feels like it is constructed out of lines rather than individual points, which seem to make the relationships less mind bending, even though the definitions only differ by a few numbers.  The moment it really sunk in that every individual point in the circles I was looking at really really was circular patterns all the way down.  I’d been looking at and computing images of various fractals for over 20 years at that point, but had never made that particular connection before.  I had to see the parts as an exact copy of the whole instead of  each one being subtly different.