RE:What are IFS fractals?

MR LEEMON C BAIRD III ([email protected])
Fri, 30 Jun 1995 00:26:53 EDT


Jan Hardenbergh [[email protected]] wrote:
> What does IFS stand for? -Jan

An IFS fractal is an Iterated Function System fractal. Actually,
when people say IFS, they usually mean a specific type of IFS
(hyperbolic, affine). These are objects that are made up entirely of
small copies of themselves, tha>gh the copies might be distorted with
linear transformations and translations (like a Transform or
MatrixTransform node). So, a mountain is an IFS fractal if you can
say "this mountain is made of four parts, and each part is a shrunken
copy of the whole". An example of a non-IFS fractal would be a tree
where you can say "this tree is made of three parts, two of which are
shrunken copies of the whole, and one of which is a simple cylinder".
To be an IFS fractal, all the parts have to be copies of the whole.
On the fractal VRML page, the tree is non-IFS, and the mountain is
IFS.

Leemon Baird
[email protected]
http://kirk.usafa.af.mil/~baird/VRML <--fractal VRML page