App Detail » JuliaTrek

App Description

JuliaTrek is an app that lets you explore 24 curated fractal types: Mandelbrot, Cubic Mandelbrot, Quadric Mandelbrot, Quintic Mandelbrot, Perpendicular Mandelbrot, Burning Ship, Bird Of Prey, Buffalo, Celtic, Druid, Tricorn and Cubic Tricorn, along with their 12 Julia counterparts. This is my new flagship fractal app.

It uses a futuristic TNG GUI and lets you create amazingly beautiful, shallow-depth, quasi-3D fractals using the SAM (Stripe Average Method) gradient coloring. You can also use 'Smooth CPM' and 'Basic' coloring, enhanced with 'Density Controls' and 'Palette Roll' to color the fractals. JuliaTrek includes an awesome, innovative and extremely powerful Gradient Designer so that you can create your own custom gradients with an unlimited number of colors, which are used in all coloring methods.

Custom gradients can be stored in the Gradient Library for quick access, and fractals can be stored in the Fractal Library, complete with preview images so that you can conveniently find them visually later on. Batches of fractal presets and single fractal files can be stored to disk via the standard Save Panel.

Workflow is extremely optimized in this app. Smart autorendering allows you to quickly make successive parameter changes to your fractal without having to wait for each change to render. In other words, if you have autorendering enabled, then every time you make a change to the fractal it will automatically abort the previous rendering and start rendering a new fractal with the new value.

Julia Fractals:

JuliaTrek employs a unique approach to exploring Julia fractals in two different ways. First, when in Julia-mode, you can click anywhere in the dynamically zoomable non-Julia fractal in the smaller fractal navigator view, which will automatically render a new Julia fractal in the larger fractal previewer using the click point as the new julia seed coordinate.

Alternatively, when in Standard-mode, you can click the 'JULIA ON/OFF' button (in the top bar) to toggle into Julia-mode, which automatically transfers the position and zoom of the standard fractal from the large main fractal viewer into the proto fractal in the small fractal navigator view and renders a new small proto fractal, and simultaneously, a new julia fractal is rendered in the large fractal viewer using a new julia seed based on the position of the standard fractal at the time of the toggle. The location of this new julia seed is shown by the white square targeter in the small fractal navigator. The upshot of this is, you are seeing the julia fractal that is located at the exact center of the previously shown standard fractal image.

You can export fractal images up to 4096x4096 pixels in size, and they are always rendered using 9x (3x3) supersampled antialiasing for stunning images.

JuliaTrek is multi-threaded, so you can export multiple fractals simultaneously, and still continue to explore new preview fractals at the same time.

Burning Ship and Bird Of Prey:

The Burning Ship and Bird Of Prey fractals are less famous than the Mandelbrot fractal, but are equally fractacular. What the Mandelbrot fractal does with spiral and curlicue patterns, the Burning Ship family of fractals does with lines, arcs, boxes, triangles, hearts, and other geometric shapes. Fantastic ship masts and sails, butterflies, insectoids, crescent moons, and a plethora of variations lurk in the depths, awaiting your discovery.

Perpendicular Mandelbrot:

The Perpendicular Mandelbrot fractal renders a 2D planar slice of the second order 3D Mandelbulb that is directly perpendicular to the Mandelbrot fractal.

Druid:

The Druid fractal formula uses the standard Mandelbrot formula for even numbered iterations and the Celtic formula for odd iterations. There are a plethora of heart-shaped fractals to be found, such as the one used in the JuliaTrek icon and others seen in the screenshots below.

App Changes

• June 11, 2014 Initial release