Whilst browsing on DeviantArt the other day I came across something I had never seen before, known as Mandelbulb art. The work itself wasnt perticulaly complex but the way in which it was created intrugued me so I decided to do some research into it and I was shocked to find out how complex it all came across.
"The Mandelbulb is a three-dimensional analogue of the Mandelbrot set, constructed by Daniel White and Paul Nylander using spherical coordinates.[1]
A canonical 3-dimensional Mandelbrot set does not exist, since there is no 3-dimensional analogue of the 2-dimensional space of complex numbers. It is possible to construct Mandelbrot sets in 4 dimensions using quaternions. However, this set does not exhibit detail in all dimensions like the 2D Mandelbrot set." (wiki)
After reading this I had a slight grasp of what they were getting at, but I was still confused how such beautiful looking shapes could be made through this Mandelbulb program and did more further looking into it, it was then I found out that Mandelbulb contains complex mathematics and equations for it to work. As shown below:
I've never been good at maths, nevermind equations of this kind, so reading and trying to learn things like this completely threw me off track. In the end it was something that I just could not grasp. I downloaded the Mandelbulb 3D pack to even try and attempt making a shape but it required programmes that were more recent (such as photoshop CS4 onward) whereas I only have PS CS2.
I tried not to be put off by my lack of tech and math smarts so decided to watch videos on what exactly it does as at this time I hadnt yet seen anything other than still images of Mandelbulb products. Some of the videos I found really amazed me.
Discovering this program has really made me curious as to if Mandelbulb is used within the digital film and games industry and if so why its used and what effects the people who use it want to create by using it. I'll be trying to do more research into who exactly uses this program as I would certainly love to give it a go if ever I get the chance.
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