I bought a product called MojoWorld, which was written by one of Mandelbrot's students. It's a bit long for an update, but it still works on my machine, though I do suspect it's running under emulation (haven't checked, having too much fun.) It's basically a system of dialogs which group inputs into categories like atmosphere, terrain, ocean, etc. These inputs can be hooked up to a number of functions which can be composed. The output is a fractal planet (of naturally arbitrary detail.) So much fun!
I thought about mentioning it here for two reasons: a) I wonder if something like this wouldn't be a great way to teach people about fractals. and b) These planets fit into very small files, the biggest one I've made is 53KB. In that one I used these area-effect devices called "parameter bombs" to shove the otherwise evenly distributed terrain around into continents. It renders noticeably slower with these in place as well. Before I did that, the same planet was a 16KB file. What this seems to tell me is that what's represented in the file is just the math for generating the planet, not the generated planet at all. It does export meshes to common 3D formats, which is nice. Does anyone here know of any open source software that does this stuff? The author's dissertation is here: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=193498 ...and the book they wrote later can be purchased here: http://www.amazon.com/Texturing-Modeling-Third-Procedural-Approach/dp/1558608486 -- Casey Ransberger
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