Evolution
Generating images of the Mandelbrot Set is a numerically intense process, repeating calculations over and over for each point on a grid. So in the early days, to get speed you had to make compromises. One such compromise was to use the mainframe (located in an entirely different town!). Doing so gave a little speed, but then no color graphics. The final result looked like this:
Pretty awesome, huh?
It was possible to fill the image up using different characters instead of colors, but that was never appealing.
So the best approach was to keep the images relatively small and keep the counts relatively low. Assigning colors randomly would yield something like this:
Now a more familiar version assigns a color from a predefined palette, giving a more appealing color scheme:
So that is a relatively simplified review of my history playing with the Mandelbrot Set. The image is now quite familiar, and almost boring. Applying a minor geometric transformation to the set results in another interesting image:
That’s pretty interesting in and of itself, but…..
Can you just imagine drinking a warm beverage from a mug bearing this remarkable design. I have done so, and it was exquisite. You can buy a mug here:
or here:
Finally, I had a little fun with this using SeamCarver, an algorithm that resizes images by selectively removing the least interesting parts.
Beware the SeamCarver.
Thanks for sticking with me.
Pax.