Something I used to be really into playing with a few years ago is fractal artwork. Fractals are graphics generated by mathematical formulas using fractal art programs. (You don't have to actually know or understand the math to create them. I sure don't.) You can do some really beautiful things with them- fractal equations are behind a lot of forms in the natural world and in the weather.
Here are some examples of really gorgeous computer generated fractal art from Deviantart.com.
And finally, some free fractal software you can download if you want to try making them yourself.
Apophysis is the easiest to start with, I think, but there's also
Fractal Explorer,
Chaoscope, and
more.
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This is really interesting stuff. The images are all outstanding. Thought I'm still unclear to exactly how these images are made. Do you manipulate already existing images? I saw in the link that a lot of those images look computer generated, but the ones on your blog do not. How does one program create such different looks? How do mathematical problems create these images and how does the equation itself factor into whether it looks like a landscape or ice crystals? I am very interested in the process of how these images come to be.
ReplyDeleteif the idea of using nature in such types of art as inspiration or just a base is not beautiful enough, than the images provided in this post are. I do believe however that the Fractal Art-Work itself is not the aerial/nature photographs presented here but rather work based off of these kinds of natural occurring fractal geometries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal). Nevertheless, a great post especially for like-minded thinkers as many of us in design, who at times find ourselves straining for things to help inspire us.
ReplyDeleteI love fractal art, especially when using it in photoshop and making some really interesting designs. The nature route you took is an interesting one, just walking around, many people don't think of the layouts of leaves or cracks in the ground as something that could be turned into art, but everywhere we go or look, can be thought of as art in one way or another
ReplyDeleteI was happy to see you post fractals! I was involved with some work on using fractal systems to generate models of various plants. I developed a fractal rule set for the creosote bush. Here's some of the generated images from a summer camp program:
ReplyDeletehttp://kobus.ca/ISC/2009_3d_models.php
For the creosote I basically said, for each iteration of growth either branch or just grow another segment. Each segment that grows has some angles associated with it that are drawn from a probability distribution that most closely resembles the plant in nature.
Here's a web tool that let's you play with the angles and probabilities to create different variations of a fungus called alternaria (uses the same software that created the creosote):
http://vision.cs.arizona.edu/taralove/lsystem.html