Fractal Art- A fractal image generated by Sterling Fractal by Stephen Ferguson. Enlarge A fractal image generated by Sterling Fractal by Stephen Ferguson. Fractal art is created by calculating fractal mathematical functions and transforming the calculation results into still images, animations, music, or other art media. Fractal images are graphs of the calculation results, and fractal animations are sequences of these graphs. Fractal music maps the calculation results to music pitches or other sounds. Fractal art is usually created with the assistance of a computer, in order to speed up the process of calculating the fractal function. The Mandelbrot set, a common example of a fractal art. Enlarge The Mandelbrot set, a common example of a fractal art. Fractals fall into four broad categories relevant to fractal art: * Those for which membership of a point in a fractal set may be determined by iterative application of a simple function. Examples of this type are the Mandelbrot set, the Lyapunov fractal, and the Burning Ship fractal. * Those for which a geometric replacement rule exists. Examples include Cantor dust, the Sierpinski gasket, the Menger sponge and the Koch snowflake. * Those created with iterated function systems, in particular fractal flames. * Those which are generated by stochastic rather than deterministic processes (examples include fractal landscapes). Fractal with cycled colors. Fractal with cycled colors. Fractals of all four kinds have been used as the basis for digital art and animation. Starting with 2-dimensional details of fractals such as the Mandelbrot Set, fractals have found artistic application in fields as varied as texture generation, plant growth simulation and landscape generation. Fractals are also being used in context with evolutionary algorithms in the Electric Sheep project, as people use fractals rendered with distributed computing as their screensaver, and "rate" the flame they are viewing. Then the server reduces the traits of the undesirables, and increases those of the desirables to produce a computer-generated, community-created piece of art. The two most popular fractal image creation programs are probably Ultra Fractal and Apophysis. The latter is a fractal flame editor and the former a more general purpose fractal program. During the 1990s Fractint for DOS was the most popular fractal rendering software for the PC. Fractal music is able to produce more realistic natural sounds and subtle tunes than conventional approaches.

Ultra Fractal Ultra Fractal is a fractal generation program with many advanced capabilities. The program supports multiple layers, different layer blending modes, transformations and custom fractal formulas. Different coloring algorithms are also selectable and a large number of formula files are available in a public formula database. It is one of the few fractal programs that supports arbitrary precision arithmetic, allowing users to zoom to a magnification of 10^4000 Example of a multi-layered fractal made with Ultrafractal Enlarge Example of a multi-layered fractal made with Ultrafractal The interface is highly customizable considering the wealth of functions at hand. The software displays image statistics and the estimated render time. Other features include fullscreen mode, color cycling, distributed calculations and a detailed help file. Version 4 supports animations and better flame fractal rendering. As of 2006, a full unlimited version of Ultrafractal 4 standard costs US $59 ($129 for the Animation Edition). An evaluation copy functions fully except for the ability to export images. Unregistered copies only create watermarked renders.