
Fractal Lab - yesbabyyes
http://sub.blue/fractal-lab
======
kelsolaar
Impressive! The UI looks really user friendly and your video shows quite a
nice panel of creative use cases, really keen on being able to play with that.

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bipin_nag
You can create vivid unimaginable universes/superstructures with such detail
just by changing some parameters. Planets, space stations, cities, forest,
ocean, I can only say what else. The fractals I have seen in the video
outnumber the unique sci-fi worlds in movies/games I have seen. I feel like a
God who can create my own universe. Simply amazing. Just wow.

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xixixao
There aren't enough positive comments here. Damn this is so cool, technically
rendering-wise, UX-wise, a great showcase... I love the video! Really hope the
author releases the app, even if it isn't open sourced.

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sneak
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY

(His voice is wonderful though, so maybe KEEP TALKING AND TAKE MY MONEY.)

I would pay $199 for this in a .app bundle instantly.

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yesbabyyes
I found this via @mrdoob on Twitter[1] and if he's impressed by this kind of
stuff then, well... :-)

[1]
[https://twitter.com/mrdoob/status/595297811656286208](https://twitter.com/mrdoob/status/595297811656286208)

~~~
13
If Mr Doob is impressed, drop everything and go look at it.

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tjic
First person to use this tool to find a BLIT wins!

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_(short_story)](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_\(short_story\))

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kpatterson
First off, awesome work. This is absolutely insane. Can't wait for the
previews. I want to design my next game with all fractal art, and this might
just be the golden tool.

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doctorstupid
It's so refreshing to hear someone speak in a calm and understated tone for a
change.

~~~
edwinjm
He's the modern version of Bob Ross.

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gavanwoolery
If anybody is interested in how this stuff works, I highly recommend looking
at:
[http://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/menger/menger.htm](http://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/menger/menger.htm)

and many of the fractal examples at shadertoy.com

~~~
gavanwoolery
Also, before reading that you might want to read and study the associated
shadertoy example in:

[http://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/distfunctions/distfun...](http://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/distfunctions/distfunctions.htm)

which covers distance functions.

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mu_killnine
Wonderful little demo, you can tell he's really explored the concept of
fractal generation in great depth over the course of his development...it's
incredible.

It's interesting how similar the stimulation I get from his voice is compared
to the visuals I am seeing in his demo. Tingles, everywhere...

------
ingomaro
"Bob Ross - The Joy Of Fractals"

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asurma
Oculus Rift plz?

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ldom66
Wow this is really, really impressive. Every little detail of the app and the
rendering is finely designed and well thought of. There are even god rays and
camera aperture settings. I would love to try it!

------
aidos
Incredible.

In the 90s we had rendering software that took about 10 minutes to general a
single 2D fractal. I loved playing with it.

When I went to university, as part of a course, we watched a video where
someone had created animations by adjusting a single parameter of the (2D)
fractal over time. They'd spent untold hours of processing time to generate
the frames. It was magical because it helped to offer insights into how the
parameters are tied to the shape of the structure. I seem to recall fractals
that looked like they were slapping each other's hands.

This is the first time I've really seen fractal software in the last 10-15
years. At university we talked about how it would exist one day, but damn,
that's just incredible to see.

~~~
isp
You might like to try out Mandelbrot Maps. It allows real-time interactive
exploration of the relationship between the Mandelbrot set and associated
Julia sets. (There is a corresponding Julia set for each point on the
Mandelbrot set, and some striking structural similarities.) Also, the images
it produces are beautiful. :-)

Disclaimer: I wrote the original version for my MSc project 7 years ago.
Future students added further improvements in later years, including notably
creating two Android apps. All versions are free and open source software.

\-
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.ac.ed.inf.m...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.ac.ed.inf.mandelbrotmaps)
\- Android app port, by Alasdair Corbett

\-
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.bunnies.fra...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.bunnies.fractalmaps)
\- Updated Android app (Fractal Maps), by Sky Welch

\- [http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/mandelbrot-
maps/](http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/mandelbrot-maps/) \- Original
Mandelbrot Maps (Java applet), by me

\- Wadler's blog: [http://wadler.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/fractal-
maps.html](http://wadler.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/fractal-maps.html) |
[http://wadler.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/mandelbrot-and-julia-
su...](http://wadler.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/mandelbrot-and-julia-
surprising.html) | [http://wadler.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/mandelbrot-
maps.html](http://wadler.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/mandelbrot-maps.html)

------
joejev
The software looks awesome, the combination of your voice and the video was
really soothing.

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ZeroFries
Exploring these worlds via VR would be amazing. Exciting times ahead!

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joshu
I can't select text? Blah

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estefan
Dude I expect you could easily sell that to movie studios or game studios to
develop levels/scenes. 7:11 looks like the inside of an industrial building,
or you could use it to develop organic looking assets, mystical
scenery/mandalas, etc.

I reckon you could definitely commercialise this.

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ntumlin
It boggles my mind to think that this guy knows more about fractals than I
could ever know there is to know about fractals. It's really interesting to me
how people gain such deep knowledge of fields that I'll never scratch the
surface of. Makes me wish I had more time.

~~~
jonah
Not only that but this is _just_ his hobby.

~~~
skore
More than both, he is _playing with it_.

------
bretr
great golf voice

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bluejoy
This is absolutely amazing. I wonder what it takes to create something so
brilliant single handedly, and that too as a hobby!

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supercoder
This is amazing.

The UI looks great, and of course the functionality is incredibly inspiring.

Really look forward to the day when I can play around with it !

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markuswaltre
this is one of the most impressive demos i've watched in a while. can't wait
for it to go live!

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bipin_nag
This is awesome.

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xenonysf
I want to 3D print with this. yes!

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amelius
This is truly amazing. However, I can't help but wonder what the possible uses
of this tool are (except for exploring fractals, and making fractal-art).

~~~
MarkL4
This tools makes inroads on GUIs for procedurally generating extraordinary
physical complexity. Ask this again when we need design tools for molecular
manufacturing (nanotech).

~~~
robertfw
Not to mention, it's beautiful. Not everything needs to have a practical use.

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joshuapants
Oh great another site that ruins the OSX back gesture.

~~~
Retr0spectrum
It also ruins scrolling for me. I have to click and drag the scrollbar.

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jjar
Simply wow.

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azeirah
Wow.

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vvpan
So how does one learn to draw fractals? Any good resources I should check out?

~~~
DanBC
Fractint was well respected software. It's very old but the source is
available. I'm not sure what kind of licence the source is under - this was in
the days when people called things "stone soup".

The math is going to be easily portable.

[http://www.nahee.com/spanky/www/fractint/getting.html](http://www.nahee.com/spanky/www/fractint/getting.html)

------
jhund
I know I'm dating myself by posting this. Tom, the creator is associated with
Kai Krause, creator of some cool graphics software a long time ago...

[http://kai.subblue.com/en/contact.html](http://kai.subblue.com/en/contact.html)

~~~
daveloyall
I've never heard of any of these people, but I have a strange impulse to buy
some iOS app called Frax.

...Wait! No. No, I don't.

~~~
jonah
You should, I've played with it and it's quite amazing!

Edit: Here is one of the other creators talking about it a bit more:
[http://kai.subblue.com/en/frax.html](http://kai.subblue.com/en/frax.html)

~~~
daveloyall
I think you missed my point.

I don't like advertising, and that whole website is a particularly nefarious
form of it.

"Buy FRAX! Douglas Adams would have!" Oh, ffs.

~~~
frogpelt
What?

I had to go back and see if we were looking at the same website. I don't think
we were.

------
yellowapple
Was it really necessary to implement your own scrollbar? It's absurdly slow
(and therefore annoying) on Firefox/Conkeror, and seems entirely redundant
when the browser handles scrolling perfectly fine.

~~~
bloaf
I have a weird issue in Chrome where setting the video volume causes the page
to scroll down until only the lower half of the video was visible. I am unable
to scroll back up and have to refresh the page.

~~~
tslocum
Experiencing the same issue... But boy is that scroll bar _pretty_ /s

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madez
The speech in the video is hardly understandable (at least for me). Is there a
transcript anywhere?

Edit: You seriously think a comment asking for a transcript because the voice
seems hard to understand deserves being down voted?

~~~
tempestn
It seems very clear to me. Perhaps there's a problem with your browser sound?

~~~
mholt
No, the narrator is definitely whispering.

~~~
oh_sigh
I could easily understand him, but yes, the narrator sounds like he's almost
falling asleep, or he is recording in a room with a sleeping baby and doesn't
want to wake it. I assume your comment is receiving so much resistance because
apparently a lot of people find his voice "soothing", and people don't realize
that a soothing voice is not necessarily the best for communicating
information.

~~~
madez
But why - for everything good in this world - would they down-vote then?

~~~
tempestn
I didn't down-vote, but I expect the comment comes across as antagonistic.
Objectively, he isn't whispering. Whispering means sounds are not voiced,
which is not the case here. So at best this is an exaggeration. Bluntly stated
as it is, it likely seems unnecessarily negative in tone to some.

~~~
madez
Tone is interpretation. I think we should prefer to error on the side of doubt
before down-voting.

Let's assume they didn't down-vote because of interpreted tone but instead
because they disagreed on the statement that the speaker whispered.

Why don't they put forth an perfectly good, objective criticism like you just
did with

    
    
        Objectively, he isn't whispering. Whispering means sounds
        are not voiced, which is not the case here.
    

instead of down-voting?

I think down-voting should not be used for expressing disagreement.

Destructive behaviour is a good reason for down-voting.

Was his comment destructive? He used the word "whisper" non-conformant with
the definition you brought. I don't think that was intentional and I think it
was easy to get what he was trying to say. Other people also noted the "golf
commentator voice". His behaviour was not destructive.

Down-voting is misused. I don't know how the community feels about this, but I
see it as an issue.

------
fogleman
So when can we try it for ourselves?

~~~
azeirah
> Fractal Lab is my {NOT AZEIRAH'S} personal technical and creative canvas
> where I can explore ideas freely in my own time without obligations and
> support commitments, so for the moment it isn't available online or for
> local installation. I have some project ideas I first want to fully explore
> using Fractal Lab, after that I'll probably release the code.

This is on his site

soo... someday maybe

~~~
ctdonath
Failing that, his main page promotes the iOS app FRAX. Any opinions/experience
about it?

~~~
archagon
Wow! The demo video[1] is really impressive. How are those effects created, I
wonder? Do the fractals get their own depth maps? How do you arrive at
algorithms that look so darn beautiful, especially those metal and plastic
shaders? Is there prior art for this?

[1]: [http://fract.al](http://fract.al)

------
shocks
Scrolling is completely broken. :/ (But this looks awesome!!)

~~~
grkvlt
I keep reading these comments on HN, but for me, I have never experienced a
'broken' scrolling effect. I browse using Chrome on OSX using: 1. my laptop
touchpad and two-finger dragging, 2. the up/down arrow keys, 3. the spacebar,
or 4. the scroll-wheel on my mouse. On my phone I use Android Chrome and
scroll by dragging up and down. Anyway, I can't remember ever having these
techniques not work.

Is there some other way of scrolling that I haven't thought of, and therefore
am not using day-to-day, that breaks for other people, or do I just put up
with it unconciously, switching between methods 1-4 automatically on the
laptop, and never notice? Or, are people using iPads or iPhones, which I do
not own, and they are more susceptible? Or Browsers-other-than-Chrome, which I
guess must exist ;)

Genuinely curious!

~~~
jabuti
I'm using Firefox on OSX. It scrolls extremely slow using a mousewheel. It
also won't scroll when the mouse pointer is over the Vimeo embed (with the
mousewheel or touchpad)

~~~
freditup
Also, the pageup and pagedown keys don't move the page. Also, the arrow keys
don't move the page. Also, I can't seem to scroll by clicking on the scrollbar
thumb and dragging it.

Very frustrating indeed on FF on a desktop.

------
azdle
In case the creator is reading this, please don't break scrolling. This page
scrolls impossibly slowly for me. (Firefox 37.0.2, OSX 10.10.3)

~~~
azeirah
Drag to scroll

~~~
yellowapple
I'm on a desktop. My mouse has a scrollwheel. My scrolling is perfectly fine
on pretty much every other website. Why should I be expected to know to "drag
to scroll" as if I'm doing all my web browsing on a smartphone emulator?

------
eigenvalue
I can't but help to think there might be some commercial potential here-- it
looks incredibly fun to play with. Perhaps a free web-app where you can pay to
have animations rendered at high resolution server-side and then placed in a
Dropbox folder for download. Or something that makes music videos by using
audio information to control some of the fractal parameters during an
animation.

~~~
yesbabyyes
Perhaps you could seize the opportunity to train yourself not to look for a
commercial value, or indeed, any value beyond it's inherent value.

To me it's obvious that this has _value in itself_ ; and frankly, I'm
surprised you don't appreciate that.

~~~
eigenvalue
You misunderstood me-- I think this is amazingly cool and has a ton of
intrinsic value. I was only suggesting that in addition to this, there could
be a possibility of making some kind of product that people would like enough
to pay for. That would expose more people to creating advanced fractal art
beyond a small circle of technologists.

~~~
yesbabyyes
_You misunderstood me-- I think this is amazingly cool and has a ton of
intrinsic value._

Cool! We're in agreement.

Here's my take: I think there always could be a possibility of making a
product that (you could convince) people like enough to pay for. (Here in my
country, people literally sell shit for money. Elk shit, to be exact.
Apparently, many Germans want to have it in their homes.)

But let's say you come to this wonderful small gelateria in an Italian
village. The ice cream is amazing. The setting is amazing. Your experience is
breathtaking. Naturally, since we're all entrepreneurs here and all that jazz,
you think "I wonder if there's not a commercial value in this". So you start
making some kind of ice cream cones or whatever. You make advertising which
creates a longing for that experience, that we all kind of know (perhaps even
from my few faltering words) of Italian ice cream on a trattoria somewhere in
Tuscany. You sell the ice cream to people.

Now, did you expose more people to that original gelateria? No, you didn't!
You sold them on the idea, and they got some pretty boring ice cream to eat in
their pretty boring home. And you got the money.

That's an approximation of what I'm afraid might happen if you succeeded in
convincing the creator to "monetize". But it's ok, you won't do that; first
off, he's not here and what's more he's obviously got enough talent to make
whatever money he wants to, should he so decide.

Edit: In my original reply, I didn't mean "train". I rather meant "practice".
It's a subtle but important difference and I see how it can shift the
perception of my message quite a bit. Forgive me, I am not a native speaker.

~~~
erydo
You make an interesting point about the dangers of blindly "monetizing", but I
don't think it's relevant to parent's comment for a few reasons (not the least
of which that paying for software doesn't by itself reduce its utility, unlike
the ice-cream + scenery example where the implicit scenery value is removed in
the commercial "product").

Natural scenery doesn't cost money to make. Making profit off of it isn't
intrinsically value-creating.

Software _does_ take effort to make, and being comfortable finding ways to
monetize it means more programmers can afford to create things like this. Not
everyone has as enough free time to make all the things we want to pro bono.
Many people have jobs (often for other people who _did_ figure out how to
monetize their own ideas).

So I'm all in favour of developers practicing asking/answering that question,
because often finding the answer is what allows them to actually pursue those
ideas. It's not wrong for people to sell the fruits of their labour—the world
gets fruit that might not have existed otherwise.

------
simonmd
The author's voice makes me want to create some happy little fractal trees
over here ... then some happy little fractal clouds over there ...

This is awesome. I want to play with this very badly.

~~~
AceJohnny2
On the topic of the voice and its effect, you may be interested in
[http://www.reddit.com/r/asmr](http://www.reddit.com/r/asmr)

~~~
madez
Strangely, the voice in the video makes me uncomfortable.

~~~
getsat
The lip smacking and semi-whispering is very annoying to me.

