l'appartenenza di un punto ad un insieme frattale può essere determinata con l'applicazione iterativa di una semplice funzione, come l'insieme di Mandelbrot, il frattale di Lyapunov e il frattale Burning Ship;
esiste una regola di sostituzione geometrica, come per la polvere di Cantor, il triangolo di Sierpinski, la spugna di Menger e la curva di Koch;
sono creati con sistemi di funzioni iterate, in particolare le fiamme frattali;
sono generati da processi stocastici invece che deterministici, come i paesaggi frattali.
A partire dai dettagli bidimensionali dei frattali come l'insieme di Mandelbrot, i frattali hanno trovato applicazione artistica in vari campi quali la produzione di tessuti, la simulazione della crescita delle piante, la generazione di paesaggi.
Spugna di Menger
This page uses a genetic algorithm to model a population of individuals, each containing a string of DNA which can be visualised in the form of an image. By starting with a population consisting of a randomly generated gene pool, each individual is compared against the reference image (the one on the left), and the individuals can then be ranked by their likeness to it, known as their "fitness", with the best fit being displayed on the output image (the one on the right). By breeding the fittest individuals from the population, the DNA which produces the most accurate representation of the reference image is selected over successive generations, effectively demonstrating the power of a natural selection process to produce the best candidate for any given environment.
WinFract Version 17.2x is a 'Public-Beta' release and a major upgrade to the previous general release, Winfract Version 17.1. Whats new to the program is a great deal of core technology from the DOS version of Fractint, meaning better performance, an improved user interface, and many new options that were not in the older versions of Winfract. Winfract will be distributed on diskette as part of the book "Fractals for Windows", ISBN 1-878739-25-5, to be published in December 1992 by Waite Group Press. Because it takes several months to print, bind, and distribute the book, we are releasing this interim version of Winfract now (and perhaps another interim release later - this is very much a "work-in-progress") so folks can find and we can fix any bugs before the disk goes in the book