Blue Mouse Monkey Blog

Ever wondered what it would look like if you took a Mandelbrot set and made it 3D? Me neither, actually (see next paragraph about ugly-colored fractal art). However, apparently it’s harder than it sounds (to someone like me who knows little about such things.) Anyhow, Daniel White, David Makin, and some other mathematicians came up with a way to do it, and the result is a set of stunning images, some of which I’ll post here to whet your appetite, but more can be seen at Mandelbulb: The Unravelling of the Real 3D Mandelbrot Fractal. (Scroll down to get past the mathy stuff).

Besides their 3D magicality, these images are compelling to me as an artist because they’re colored so beautifully. Most ‘Fractal Art’ is made unattractive to this painter’s eye because of the garish, unsubtle colors applied to it. No offense, fractal mathematicians out there, and I respect your mad skills in math, but your sense of color tends to be gauche, unsophisticated, heavy-handed, inelegant…okay, I’ll stop. But these Mandelbulbs are different. They’re gorgeous. I want to climb inside these places and explore!

Images credit: Daniel White. Click thumbnails to view full size.

I’m telling myself that it’s art. Or could be, at a higher resolution. Whatever way you look at it, I spent the evening making these images using effects you can add to Mac’s Photo Booth application. Some of them are downright creepy. How to here. Thanks to Jimmy Thomas for the tip — and the one at the bottom is us at work today through the ‘compound eye’ effect. The rest are using the ‘kaleidoscope’ effect.

starteeth

chins

mouth quatrefoil

sauron's eyes

fingerstar

she who watches

chewie

pucker up

mouth quatrefoil 2

fingertip flower

gum wrapper blue

Gladly the cross-eyed bear

magic pink pen

inner glow

Julia and Jimmy

Check out this amazing stop-motion animation from the New Zealand Book Council.

(The Kiwi classic featured in the video, Maurice Gee’s 1993 “Going West,” hasn’t been published in the United States.)