Bill Pragnell <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> All that amazing mandelbulb stuff has inspired me to dig out a strange
> attractor search/plot app I wrote a few years ago, and try to get some
> decent plots into POV-Ray. Here's a few of the nicer ones I've found
> over the last couple of weeks.
>
> Bill

Excellent really interesting shapes, I don't think I will even try to understand
how they were made and just accept I should have paid more attention at school.
It's a shame they don't look as good at high resolutions you could make some
fairly good abstract poster art.

Sean

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> Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> Now model a modern art gallery and put these on pedestals therein.
> 
> Good idea! I could make some of them really big, put 2D plots in picture
> frames... *gazes into middle distance*
> 
> 
Beter yet:

Make them *for real!*


Alain

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> Christian Froeschlin <chr### [at] chrfrde> wrote:
>> Neat! I take it these images are essentially an exorbitant
>> number of spheres around externally generated data points?
> 
> Exactly right. :) (See my other post for my somewhat hacky workflow)
> 
> The data files vary in size from a few 100k for the thin spindly ones, up to
> 20MB+ for the more voluminous ones. Luckily even the vast ones are pretty quick
> to produce from just the equation coefficient data. The slowest part appears to
> be writing the data file!
> 
>> I wondered if it's a blob but I thought some transitions
>> didn't quite look like it, although it's hard to tell
>> with the small object size. If it's spheres it might
>> be worth to try a blob for faster rendering.
> 
> I tried blobs, but they turn out to be many times slower for this case. These do
> use radiosity and multiple area_lights, after all. With antialiasing off, they
> render in a couple of minutes (parsing can be longer!). With AA on, an hour or
> so.
> 
> Actually I quite like the expanded-polystyrene/gritty look that bare spheres
> produce!
> 
> 

You could output as DF3 file and render as an isosurface. You also could 
render those as media. It can be worth a try.



Alain

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Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:
> You could output as DF3 file and render as an isosurface. You also could
> render those as media. It can be worth a try.

That was the first method I tried. However, the df3 is very wasteful since most
of the volume is empty. Furthermore, the df3s for these examples would be at
least 512MB each! During testing at ~100x100x100, I found that generating,
reading in and rendering a df3 was much slower than the method I'm currently
using for a volume 64x larger.

I'm using a 3d vector<bool> to store the volume during iteration, then only
write out the voxel coordinates that were hit. That way, memory usage and file
size is at a minimum and I throw away all the empty locations. Unfortunately, I
also throw away the cumulative information, but it's very quick to iterate so
I'll probably come back and do something with it in future.

Bill

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LightBeam <seb### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> I Really love "barbwire"...

Yes, I like that one too - looks like the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter!

>How did you code these ?

The equations can be found here:

http://www.chaoscope.org/doc/attractors.htm

Using different coefficients in these equations produces different attractors
(although most combinations don't produce an attractor - you need to 'search'
random combinations of coefficients to find interesting shapes). Each new point
is calculated from the previous point, and the attractor is built up point by
point. It's just a matter of storing those points and plotting them, either as a
2D projection, or in 3D.

I wrote a java app some time ago to search for and plot attractors, but I had to
rewrite the plotting in C++ (for speed) to get data files that I could then read
into POV-Ray.

Bill

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Looks like a job for a 3D printer!   :-)

Here's one for only $5000:  http://www.desktopfactory.com/our_product/



On 2009-12-07 21:14, Alain wrote:

>> Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>>> Now model a modern art gallery and put these on pedestals therein.
>>
>> Good idea! I could make some of them really big, put 2D plots in picture
>> frames... *gazes into middle distance*
>>
>>
> Beter yet:
>
> Make them *for real!*
>
>
> Alain

Post a reply to this message

> Looks like a job for a 3D printer!   :-)
> 
> Here's one for only $5000:  http://www.desktopfactory.com/our_product/
> 
> 
> 
> On 2009-12-07 21:14, Alain wrote:

>>> Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>>>> Now model a modern art gallery and put these on pedestals therein.
>>>
>>> Good idea! I could make some of them really big, put 2D plots in picture
>>> frames... *gazes into middle distance*
>>>
>>>
>> Beter yet:
>>
>> Make them *for real!*
>>
>>
>> Alain
> 

I've seen one made out from an old ploter converted with the laser from 
an old fax machine. You can also reuse one from any old laser printer. 
It could create stuning models out of ordinary sugar with a granyness of 
about 0.5mm.
It can be home made for under $100 or about, and the functioning cost is 
prety low.



Alain

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I've seen demos of that as well.  In one instance, they "printed" a 
chain made out of sugar, with the links already connected.

The raw materials are very cheap.  It's a fast-moving field of research 
and development.  Very exciting stuff.  In another 10 years, we might 
have machine to fabricate 3D objects out of all kinds of materials, 
including food!

Imagine the possibilities:

Strange Attractor Crackers
Chocolate Mandelbulbs
Menger Sponge Cake
Cantor Cheese Logs
Moebius Strip Steaks
Solenoid Licorice
(see http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~mjmcguff/codeGallery/*)

Rick

* Many years ago, I wrote code to generate Pickover's solenoids in POV-Ray.


On 2009-12-08 13:36, Alain wrote:

>> Looks like a job for a 3D printer! :-)
>>
>> Here's one for only $5000: http://www.desktopfactory.com/our_product/
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2009-12-07 21:14, Alain wrote:

>>>> Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>>>>> Now model a modern art gallery and put these on pedestals therein.
>>>>
>>>> Good idea! I could make some of them really big, put 2D plots in
>>>> picture
>>>> frames... *gazes into middle distance*
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Beter yet:
>>>
>>> Make them *for real!*
>>>
>>>
>>> Alain
>>
>
> I've seen one made out from an old ploter converted with the laser from
> an old fax machine. You can also reuse one from any old laser printer.
> It could create stuning models out of ordinary sugar with a granyness of
> about 0.5mm.
> It can be home made for under $100 or about, and the functioning cost is
> prety low.
>
>
>
> Alain

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They didn't teach anything like that when I was in school, although I 
still didn't pay enough attention.

My mind managed to completely block out all memories of differential 
equations completely.  To this day I couldn't tell you the first thing 
about them.  :-)

But thanks to POV-Ray, I'm very comfortable with trigonometry!

On 2009-12-07 16:31, s.day wrote:
> Bill Pragnell<bil### [at] hotmailcom>  wrote:
>> All that amazing mandelbulb stuff has inspired me to dig out a strange
>> attractor search/plot app I wrote a few years ago, and try to get some
>> decent plots into POV-Ray. Here's a few of the nicer ones I've found
>> over the last couple of weeks.
>>
>> Bill
>
> Excellent really interesting shapes, I don't think I will even try to understand
> how they were made and just accept I should have paid more attention at school.
> It's a shame they don't look as good at high resolutions you could make some
> fairly good abstract poster art.
>
> Sean
>

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Rick Gutleber <ric### [at] hiscom> wrote:
> They didn't teach anything like that when I was in school, although I
> still didn't pay enough attention.
>
> My mind managed to completely block out all memories of differential
> equations completely.  To this day I couldn't tell you the first thing
> about them.  :-)
>
> But thanks to POV-Ray, I'm very comfortable with trigonometry!

I'm sure I would have paid a lot more attention if they had used POV to try to
teach me (although I don't think it was around back then...). Still, my daughter
was the only pupil in her class that knew what a radius was as she had asked me
how I created pictures on the computer and I had shown her how to make a very
basic scene. I'm sure using something like POV would make the lessons much more
memorable.

Sean

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