This page allows you to create a variety of VRML fractals and pseudofractals.
It works entirely in JavaScript with no CGI scripts, so a copy of this
page can even work correctly on an offline computer.
These are all
VRML 2.0 fractals.
A page full of small thumbnail images
shows what these fractals look like for some of the parameter
settings. That page is also useful if JavaScript is disabled, or
if you're using a less-powerful browser such as Internet Explorer,
which is unable to create VRML with JavaScript. Netscape is a better
browser for JavaScript.
These really should be called "pseudofractals" rather than "Fractals"
because they look like fractals from a distance, but up close they clearly
have a finite number of elements. True fractals have an infinite number of
components, though some may not be visible until you get very close to them.
True fractals were possible in VRML 1.0 but rendered very slowly. I
haven't tried them yet in VRML 2.0.
Each fractal has several interesting viewpoints defined you may want to see.
Some fractals look very different from different angles. In Cosmo Player,
hit the PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN buttons to visit the viewpoints.
Each fractal has several parameters that can be set.
In addition, the following four checkboxes
affect all of the fractals. The first causes them to show the VRML code rather
than rendering the VRML scene, and the second formats that VRML code.
The third makes a 100x100-pixel window (good for thumbnail pictures),
and the fourth turns on the headlight.
To use an object in another VRML scene, copy everything in its source
code below the line with "#######"
into another file. In every case, the relevant VRML code is
less than about a kilobyte, even for fractals with millions of components.
The fractals usueally fit within the box whose corners are (-1,0,-1) and (1,1,1),
and touch the origin.