Fractal Geometry and Computer Graphics

Fractal geometry has become popular in the last 15 years, and its applications can be found in technology, science or even the arts. Fractal methods and formalism are seen today as a general, abstract but nevertheless practical instrument for the description of nature in a wide sense. But it was computer graphics which made possible the increasing popularity of fractals several years ago, long after their mathematical formulation. The two disciplines are tightly linked. This book contains the scientific contributions to an international workshop held at the Computer Graphics Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. The target of the workshop was to present the wide spectrum of inter-relationships and interactions between fractal geometry and computer graphics. The topics vary from fundamentals and new theoretical results to various applications and systems development. All contributions are original, unpublished papers. The presentations have been discussed in two working groups; the discussion results, together with actual trends and topics of future research, are reported in the last section. The topics of the book are divided into four sections: fundamentals, computer grapics and optical simulation, simulation of natural phenomena, image processing and image analysis.