| Ken Musgrave and coworkers have developed fractal software to
generate and explore artificial planets. |
| The user will control parameters
including dimension of the surface, and then do real-time flyby explorations
of the planet. An early description of this project appeared in the
January, 1996,
issue of Scientific American. |
| Because we are not trying to compress an
existing image, but rather make a forgery of a realistic image, the multifractal
approach is extremely compact. |
| Random elements of the planet-generating algorithm
lead to surprises for the planet designer. Musgrave describes this as "playing
God in a found universe." |
| The level of detail is remarkable. For example, the left
side of the picture below is part of a zoom sequence starting from the planet on the right.
Click each to enlarge. |
|
| Here are two animations by Armands Auseklis. Click each image to start the download. |
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| 7.1 MB | 16.3 MB |
|
| See http://www.pandromeda.com/
for the latest advances. |
