About thefractals.net

thefractals.net is an independent gallery of live fractal art. Every piece is generated in real time on your own graphics card, so nothing you see is a pre-recorded video: each frame is calculated from the mathematics as you watch. Leave one running as a living wallpaper, or move the mouse to bring up the sliders and reshape it.

What's here

• 3D fractals you can fly through, such as the Mandelbulb, Mandelbox, Menger sponge, kaleidoscopic IFS cathedrals and the liquid-metal quaternion Julia set.
• Classic 2D fractals rendered in new ways: the living Julia set, Phoenix, Nova and Kleinian circle packings.
• Infinite zooms like Dive, which keeps descending into the Mandelbrot set.
• Fractal Studio, where you can pick a formula, palette and metal finish and explore on your own.

New to fractals or want tips on the controls? The Guide explains how each piece works and how to get the most out of it.

How it's made

The pages use WebGL shaders: small programs that run on your GPU and evaluate a fractal formula for every pixel, many times a second. The 3D pieces are drawn by ray marching, which steps a ray from the camera toward the surface using a distance estimate of the fractal. The 2D pieces use escape-time iteration with smooth colouring and simulated metal lighting. Everything runs locally in your browser, and no plugins or downloads are needed.

Supporting the site

The site is free, and a few unobtrusive ads help cover hosting. They are kept off the full-screen art. If you enjoy it, you can also leave a tip on Ko-fi.

Contact

Feedback, bug reports, ideas for new fractals, or a privacy question? Send a note with the form below. If you'd like an answer, add an email address for the reply. It's only used to answer you and is never published.