Haeckel fractals
Oct 21, 2009
In which Ernst Haeckel’s Art Forms in Nature are given the Mandelbrot treatment. The example above is one of a number of variations created using the splendid Gorgon-headed Starfish, a creature I’ve messed with myself a couple of times.
These fractal images have been created by the Subblue people using their Fractal Explorer plug-in for Adobe’s Pixel Bender Toolkit, both of which are free downloads. I’ve not had chance to play around properly with Pixel Bender but the results here make it seem worth spending time getting to grips with its rather primitive interface.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Ernst Haeckel, Christmas card artist
6 comments or trackbacks
#1 posted by Evan
Oct 22nd, 2009
“Ooooooooooooh,” said Evan.
Haeckel’s work is so intricate already, it’s obviously very difficult to make it more elaborate. I would consider this a success.
#2 posted by Tom
Oct 23rd, 2009
This image is awesome! I’ve actually (ignorantly) never been familiar with this sort of “biological art” before but have had a read around and it’s fascinating. My friend is a neuroscientist and keeps telling me about how the weird under-the-microscope-images that come up in his results would make great modern art!
#4 posted by Masha
Nov 3rd, 2009
These are great -
I downloaded the plug-ins and have been playing with them – really easy to use and rather addictive.. I found it a bit confusing to figure out how to install the various versions of this plug-in – if anyone is interested, you can see some instructions here
#5 posted by John
Nov 5th, 2009
Hi Masha. I’m still using CS 3 so I’ll have to wait to use it in PS. I’ve still not tried much with it but the Haeckel examples are encouraging.
#6 posted by Kristine Glerup
Nov 23rd, 2009
Cool – I just stumbeled upon autoformatik.com which is worth a visit, too. -Kristine