Fractal Explorer

This repository contains a GUI for visual exploration of fractals.

Current capabilities include:

• adjustment of applied colormap and hillshade
• navigation (up, down, left, right) and zooming
• saving images
• loading position/colormap from previously saved images
• saving video: zooms into current position

As navigation occurs, the fractal image is dynamically recomputed using the CUDA architecture.

Future improvements include:

• addition of more fractal types
• option to adjust orbit trap function
• image-based orbit trapping

Requirements

• Python 3.x
• an Nvidia GPU with CUDA Python installed.
• optional: OpenCV-Python (for saving videos)

Installation and Usage

1. Ensure your computer is equipped with an Nvidia GPU.
2. Install CUDA.
3. Install Python CUDA packages (in a conda environment: conda install numba cudatoolkit=9.0 pyculib).
4. Install OpenCV-Python: pip install opencv-python (for saving videos)
5. Run the fractal_explorer.py script in this repository and have fun!

Images created using the Save image button are saved to an \images\ directory in the local repository. Upon saving, the output filename is also printed to the console.

Loading a previously saved image with the Load image button will reset the window location, zoom, and colormap according to the loaded image.

Videos can also be saved using the Save video showing a gradual zoom to the current location.