Fractal World Explorer

An interactive TDT4230 project where one can explore fractal worlds.

This application implemnts a kaleidoscope IFS, meaning that the fractal forms are very editable. The application provides a way to look at these fractals by tweaking various parameters. One can as an example look at a fractal that shifts over time, or look at various landscapes created by a combination noise and repeated fractals.

Input Parameters

Parameters can be set when starting the epplication in the form of:
"./glowbox --example-input" or "./glowbox -e"

- "--help" or "-h", Shows help message.
- "--demo" or "-d", Toggles between example inputs and camera angles to showcase functionality
- "--enable-music" or "-m", Plays background music while the game is playing
- "--still" or "-s", Disables travel along terrain, and instead focuses on a single object
- "--fractal-mirror" or "-f", Increases the amount of times fractal is folded, which increases the detail/complexity of the fractal
- "--fractal-rotate-x" or "-x", Folds fractals in the x-axis with float degrees while generating
- "--fractal-rotate-y" or "-y", Folds fractals in the y-axis with float degrees while generating
- "--fractal-rotate-z" or "-z", Folds fractals in the z-axis with float degrees while generating
- "--fractal-animate" or "-t", Apply rotational offset over time, animating the fractals
- "--period" or "-p", The frequency and thus distance objects repeat, a period of 2 is completly even
- "--noise-disable" or "-n", Disables both height and fractal rotation noise

Examples of inputs

Varied box terrain:

-p=2.65

Tesseract-like folding in an even plane:

-y=2. -t -p=2.2 -n

Forest roof:

-p=2.9 -x=39.5 z=-38.9 -y=8.9 -f=5

Close up, standing still looking at animated fractal:

-z=2. -f=4 -p=47 -n -t -s

Same fractal as above, double the resolution:

-z=2. -f=8 -p=47 -n -t -s

Very varied animated fractal:

-p=49 -f=5 -z=1 -y=6 -x=-1 -t -n -s

Animated fractal tunnel:

-y=5 -t -p=4.2 -n -s -f=6

Build the app:

I highly recommend building this with linux.

Windows

Install Microsoft Visual Studio Express and CMake. You may use CMake-gui or the command-line cmake to generate a Visual Studio solution.

Linux:

Make sure you have a C/C++ compiler such as GCC, CMake and Git.

make run

which is equivalent to

git submodule update --init
cd build
cmake ..
make
./glowbox

This flag could also be very useful for utilizing the GPU: __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia