anthony mattox new media art & design

Neuron Fractal

I created this Context Free Art script a few months ago and revisited it to tweak it a bit and make some nice high resolution renderings. This is a great illustration of what I find so fascinating about fractals. Computers are often considered the antithesis of organic growth, however, their incredible ability to replicate such processes seems to be in the very nature of object oriented programming. The complexity that can be formed from such simple rules and patterns continues to amaze me.

Although a mathematics purist may not willingly call this a fractal, it is in my opinion a prime example. I think Benoît Mandelbrot would agree with me. It is a mathematical function which, through a simple iterate system, fantastically mimics physical structures. It also has the properties of self similarity over infinite scale which is indicative of fractals.

For any concerned parties, here is the source code that can be run within Context Free Art which is free to download.

startshape neuron

rule neuron{
	branch{}
	branch{r 180 y 2}
}

rule branch{
	icon{}
	branch{r 2  s .995 a -.005}
}

rule branch .04{
	icon{}
	branch{r 2  s .995 a -.005}
	branch{r 2  s .995 a -.005 f 0 y 2}
}

rule branch .05{
	branch{r 0 s .995 a -.005 f 0 y 2}
}

rule icon{
	CIRCLE{s .03 y 1}
}