Archive Of Available Fractal Generators - Discussion Thread

[Sockratease]

Here is a place to gather links to every available Fractal Generator of which we are aware!

Old or new are welcome.

Feel free to post links in this thread - it will consist of 3 posts most of the time.

Post 1 is for Free Fractal Generators plus intro text.

Post 2 is for Commercial Fractal Generators with Feature-Limited Free Versions.  Limitations should be described in such cases.

Post 3 is for Commercial Fractal Generators with Time-Limited Free Versions or no evaluation options at all.  Limitations should be described in such cases.

Members may post here with links to add.  Their posts will be deleted after the link is added to keep this thread as close to 3 posts as possible at all times.


So, a quick start on the free list  (will add links later, this is just building the skeleton of this planned reference thread and there are so many to list!)  We should get as much from this list as possible  - only actively available ones, of course : https://www.nahee.com/PNL/Fractal_Software.html  Very good start right there, but old so many need checking)

FREE FRACTAL GENERATORS:

Mandelbulb 3D

Mandelbulber

JWildfire

Kalles Fractaller

Fragmentarium

Synthclipse

Mandel Machine

Mutatorkammer

Incendia

ChaosPro

Chaoscope

BuddyBrot

[Sockratease]

COMMERCIAL FRACTAL GENERATORS WITH FEATURE LIMITED TRIALS:

Chaotica

Fractal Science Kit (?)  (Need to research that one!)

Xenodream & Friends  (will list each individually)

...

[Sockratease]

COMMERCIAL FRACTAL GENERATORS WITH TIME LIMITED TRIALS OR NO EVALUATION AVAILABLE.

Ultra Fractal - 30 Day Evaluation  (is it still like that?)

...

[Sockratease]

This is a thread I started on a whim.

It seems like an obvious thing to have, but there isn't one on the live site!

I've been too busy to really give it the start it needs, so anyone with time, please post stuff that can be edited into the above posts!

I think the final format should be an alphabetical list in the following format:

Program Name : Link : Operating System {include if 64 Bit or 32 Bit} : Maybe a date for the most recent update if available : Price if Commercial / Limitations on Free Versions if a paid version is available as well

Open to changes or even trashing the whole idea - but a truly comprehensive list seems like a great idea to me!

Maybe even color code things for popularity or OS or recently updated or even etc.

[Fraktalist]

This thread is an absolute must have and it's great you started it.
We should definitely link all those tools. and mirror them if they are hosted unsecure, as naheems hosting might expire someday..
this would be a nice job for someone new on the moderator team.

[Adam Majewski]

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Fractals#software

* Mandel by Wolf Jung

[Sockratease]

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Fractals#software

* Mandel by Wolf Jung

That's nice, but we want to compile a list here, not link to external lists!

The goal is to limit this thread to 3 posts  (as described above) so we can delete any posts after the third post!  Please only post in here with stuff we can directly edit into one of the first 3 posts and in the format described above.

These posts will be removed later, as will all posts in this thread other than the first 3.  Some discussion is fine, so long as you know it will be removed after any questions are answered  O0

[Sabine62]

I'm planning on going through Nahee's list, check the links etc and post results here (or e-mail a spreadsheet?). Would hate to see his page and the info on it vanish some day.
Question: do we need to ask his permission to use his data or will crediting be sufficient? What do you think?

[Sockratease]

I'm planning on going through Nahee's list, check the links etc and post results here (or e-mail a spreadsheet?). Would hate to see his page and the info on it vanish some day.
Question: do we need to ask his permission to use his data or will crediting be sufficient? What do you think?

I would LOVE to be able to ask his permission, but sadly Paul Lee  (known to many of us as Nahee Enterprises)  lost his battle with cancer and is no longer with us   

Here is a thread in the old site about what happened : https://www.fractalforums.com/meet-and-greet/forever-in-our-minds-a-fractal-pioneer-has-left-the-building-paul-n-lee/

I see no reason to not keep his projects as alive as we can.  Lists are not copyrighted.  I would only avoid taking articles he wrote unless we make clear their origin and our intent is only to keep them around since his site may not be hosted anymore in the future.

[Sockratease]

I just split this topic since there will likely be much discussion needed and we want to keep the "List" thread limited to only the list.

Now we can talk about this project all we want and not disturb the main list  (which still needs even it's first entry made in the format we think best)  (even the format is still up for discussion!)  (I'm still in favor of alphabetical since the list will be huge if we do a good job!).

[Fraktalist]

I too think that Paul would have wanted us to continue what he buildt up.
How about we add something like  "In memory of our fellow member Paul Lee" on top of that list?

Regarding the articles and fractal census and all other information, we should consider doing a backup of all his site structure - it would be a shame if all his work and that information is lost, and who knows how long the hosting of his site is taken care of..
Can someone 'rip' the site and keep it as backup in a safe place (we could store it on our server, without making it public) so we can mirror it if his hosting ever fails..
Anon, you seemed to be good with such things - could you take care of this?

[Sabine62]

Oh, I did not know Paul is no longer with us... How very very sad! His site has been the place for me to look up all things fractal for maybe 20 years...
Saving a backup for "just in case" is a great idea!

[rsidwell]

A couple of comments/questions:

1. I'm not sure a list of fractal programs can be truly "comprehensive". For example, there are a lot of Processing sketches that generate fractals posted on openprocessing.org, such as Mintesno Zewdu's Fractal Dandelion sketch at https://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/410936. Do we really want to include "experiments" like this in the list?

2. What is the purpose for separating free from commercial fractal generators? Or for splitting commercial ones into feature-limited vs time-limited? Certainly the fact that you need to pay for some programs needs to be mentioned in the list, but I'm not sure the list needs to be separated into three parts.

3. Some fractal generators that are no longer actively available may still be of interest. For example Arthur Sirotinsky's Fractal Explorer is still used by people who download it before it was abandoned (or got it from someone who did), and tutorials for it are available. People new to the fractal world might be looking for that program, and an entry with a note it is no longer available (or an entry on a "dead fractal generator" list) would be useful for them. (Especially since an unrelated program with the same name is available.)

4. What about fractal generator plugins for more general graphics programs like Gimp and Photoshop? Should they be included in the main lists? Put in a separate list? Ignored?

[rsidwell]

I think a one-line description would be useful for each one. Putting the different fields on new lines makes it easier for humans to read (I assume that is the audience here). Here are a few to get started; if the latest version is less than a year old, I put "Active development" instead of the latest version to avoid having to update the version when it changes frequently.

Apophysis: https://apophysis.org/index.html
Windows (32 bit)
Latest version: 2.09 (2013-04-26)
Flame fractal editor

Apophysis 7x: https://sourceforge.net/projects/apophysis7x/
Windows (32 or 64 bit)
Latest version: 16 (2014-10-18)
Flame fractal editor (upgrade of the original Apophysis)

Fractint: https://fractint.org/
DOS, Windows (32 bit), Linux (compilation required)
Latest version: 20.04p14 (2015-08-22)
Escape time fractal renderer

Fractorium: https://fractorium.com/
Windows (64 bit), Ubuntu 64 bit, Mac OS
Active development
GPU accelerated flame fractal editor

JWildfire: https://jwildfire.org/
Windows (32 or 64 bit), Mac OS, Linux, Android
Active development
Java based flame fractal editor

Mandelbulber: https://www.mandelbulber.com/
Windows (32 or 64 bit), Mac OS, Linux (compilation required)
Active development
3D fractal editor

Mandelbulb 3D: https://www.andreas-maschke.com/?cat=20
Windows (32 bit)
Active development
3D fractal editor

[gerson]

A long time ago I started doing a fractal program's list. I was cleaning it but it will take a long time to finish cause it is so extensive.
I did a worksheet with many coluns like name, web page, email, operational system, license and a little description.
Other worksheet with "broken links" to old programs, other to music programs, 3d and so on.