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Fractal World |
Fractal World has its own web site, and Fractal World V4 is now available! Like its predecessor, Fractal World V4 is free to download for personal, non-commercial use. Please visit the fractal world web site for the latest program updates, documentation, and support information.
Information for Fractal World will remain on this page, although it will eventually be trimmed down.
The Fractal maps on this web site were generated with a software package caled Fractal World, which you can download here for free.
- Version 3.0 produces planetary scale maps, but the interface is clunky and provides only a moderate amount of control over fractal construction.
- Version 4.0 has a lot of new features, more sophisticated fractal construction, and a lot of new fractals, but it is still in development and doesn't yet produce planetary maps.
Disclaimer: This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
| Feature | FW3 | FW4 | ||
| Explore mode: click to zoom, recenter | yes | yes | ||
| Instant preview, multipass evaluation | yes | yes | ||
| User selectable fractals | yes | yes | ||
| Build custom fractals from component pieces | no | yes | ||
| Save fractal textures to file | no | yes | ||
| Control fractal size, offset, scale, and displacement | no | yes | ||
| Control view parameters: coordinates, zoom | yes | yes | ||
| Fractal Brownian Motion (fbm) | yes | yes | ||
| Heterogeneous, Ridged, and Multi Fractals | yes | yes | ||
| Perlin noise basis function | yes | yes | ||
| Voronoi edge and cell basis functions | no | yes | ||
| Crater basis function (creates moon landscapes) | no | yes | ||
| Julia fractal | no | yes | ||
| 2D: Evaluate fractal in X-Y plane | yes | yes | ||
| 3D: Evaluate fractal on surface of a sphere (planet) | yes | no | ||
| Grayscale heightmap (import to Terragen or other renderer) | yes | yes | ||
| Grayscale temperature and precipitation maps | yes | no | ||
| Color-coded Biome maps | yes | no | ||
| Create custom color maps | no | yes | ||
| Topographic Shaded Rendering | no | yes |
The maps on this web site were created with Fractal World! Post-processing (for borders, labels, etc.). Grayscale heightmaps were imported into Terrangen for 3D Renders.
The pre-release 0.2 of Fractal World 4.0 is now available! It has lots of additional features beyond the 01.PRE4.0 version. Click here to download the 02.PRE4.0 zip file. This version only supports 2D textures -- no planets yet!
Version 4.0 is currently under development, but the prerelease will show you what the new interface is like. Until it's ready, you might have a look at some of the Sample Images, many of which version 4.0 produced.
See Also: Version4Documentation
The program will quickly draw a blocky, low resolution image, and then it will gradually refine the image with several passes at higher and higher resolutions. The final, full resolution image takes several seconds --or minutes-- to complete. Raw CPU power is (obviously) the main factor. If you click on the image to zoom or recenter, the program cancels the current image and immediately begins to render the new image.
Incremental Display
Version 3.2.0, which was used to generate the maps on this web site, is available for download. Click here to download the zip file.
The user interface for the Fractal World software is very rough. It's definitely not undergone "human factors" review. The program started as a laboratory for fractal algorithms, and some of the labels and controls are no longer used. The program is quite useful, however, despite its flaws.
 Fractal World 3.2 controller |
- Unzip file in a separate directory; run the program.
- The program begins rendering fractal immediately; first at low resolution, then gradually higher until it reaches full resolution.
- The bar at the bottom of the controller window indicates progress for each successive fractal rendering.
- High resolution images take a long time to render!
- If the program displays an error message, click the OK box and it should continue rendering.
- The program sometimes crashes. It's never locked up my machine or trashed my system, but I make no guarantees that it will behave properly on other computers.
- Create entirely new planets by entering different values for dz, du, and dv on the Projection tab.
- The Biome box must be checked for the biome color selection to appear correctly.
- Biome colors add a lot of processing time to the fractal rendering.
- The fractal image size is currently fixed at 800x800.
- Use the "On Click" selection to control the behavior of mouse clicks on the fractal screen: Zoom In, Zoom Out, Recenter.
- The dx and dy controls are latitude and longitude. I apologize for the bad labeling.
- The Turbulence tab provides a simple displacement mapping feature.
- The Projection tab controls allow selection between rectangular and oval globe projections.
- Rectangular projections do not look pinched, but the scale degrades at the poles.
- Oval projections look pinched when zoomed out, but the scaling is correct when zoomed in.
- Generally, explore the planet with rectangular, and use oval for scale maps.
- Lots of other controls. Some don't work, many generate non-Raieh fractals, some might cause the program to crash.
- The 3D Model tab has controls for creating triangulations of the fractal terrain. These have not been used or tested for over a year, and they may cause the program to crash.
- Experiment, and have fun!
The web sever says lots of people have downloaded the Fractal World program. Are you using the Fractal World software? Have a feature request? A question about how it works? You can contact me via email to RaiehFractalPlanet AT houston DOT rr DOT com.