Hey, thought some of you would find this interesting.

I recently stumbled across Mandelbulb 3D. Its a 3D fractal generator that has some really awesome features. Its been around for a while so has a healthy community of contributors (Fractal Forums.com) and above all its free.

(FIG.1) is an image demonstrating how you can keep zooming in and the algorithms will keep generating infinite detail. Lighting , Fog, depth of field can all be adjusted

(FIG.2) Whats more amazing is that the program features Voxel Stacking. This basically means you can generate an editable/printable file from what you can see in your viewport.
I tried loading the slices from Mandelbulb into 3D Slicer, but had no luck (there maybe a way though).
Mandelbulb creates the slices and Fiji sequences them and creates the 3D mesh as a .Obj. Blender is simply the mesh editor I chose. (Zbrush, and Mesh labs are also a good option).
Its a good idea to start small when using voxel stacking. Test to see what your computer can handle. You can create a 5Gb .OBJ but Id be surprised if you could open it.
NOTE: Mandelbulber hasnt got voxel stacking. Although it seems a little more user friendly if you just want to fly around fractals for rendered images.

Download Mandelbulb 3D
Download Fiji

Here are the tutorials I used to get started. Thanks to Don Whitaker for doing these.
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Number 5 is the one regarding voxel stacking.
(FIG.3) is just some images I found while exploring.

Enjoy!

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[Updated on: Sun, 10 February 2013 14:26 UTC]

Very cool!

Voxels are awesome

edit: Lol, this triggered me to finally retry the Mandelbulb in my own voxel engine, thanks for the re-inspiration!

[Updated on: Wed, 13 February 2013 10:13 UTC]

Ha! yeh thats a bit out of my systems reach! Ill just have to wait for this 'one day' you speak of
So how is your re-inspiration going? Found any interesting designs?

To be honest im a physical modelmaker moving over to printing so script, etc isnt really my area. But lets hope so.

Nope, can you send the link? Sounds interesting. I have had a play combining with the '_' formulas. Infact the Menger above is using _AmazingBoxSSE2.
But most of the time when I add a second formula it goes a bit crazy. I need to do some more reading on fractal forums to better understand what is happening when I change the numbers.
Heres an interesting variant, Annoyingly I didnt save the scene. When/If SW get the multi-material printer you could print something similar to this within the transparent material. (Like Objets ship in a bottle)


Have nice weekend
Piers

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The Menger sponge, at the bottom of this page:
http://www.fractalforums.com/ifs-iterated-function-systems/k aleidoscopic-%28escape-time-ifs%29/
Would be cool to one day get an actual sponge like that

For now I am tweaking the basic Mandelbulb rendering formulas as this kind of "rendering" works best with a good distance estimator, as this allows for a smooth density field to polygonize against. Helps alot against dust, spikes and artifacts.
So far only three simple bulb attempts:
http://www.shapeways.com/model/921847/mandelbulb-001.html
http://www.shapeways.com/model/922158/mandelbulb-001b.html
and latest:
http://www.shapeways.com/model/924146/mandelbulb-002.html


Coloring is chosen based on r, theta and phi from a lower iteration.

All are still rough estimates as the original colored meshes are in the 6 million poly range.
I have a script somewhere to reapply the colors after the mesh has been decimated.
But I also still have to work on hollowing them out etc.

What might work well for that render of yours is to get it laser etched in glass

[Updated on: Fri, 15 February 2013 19:20 UTC]