↑ Return to Info

Future Plans

I have a long list of features to add to Fractal Domains, some minor and some major. Here you may find some details on the direction I will be taking with the major features. Some of these require research and experimentation before they can be released, so descriptions are necessarily sketchy in some cases.

In the following, everything is provisional: the features implemented, the order of implementation and the version numbering. I’ve taken dates off completely, since I’ve fallen so far behind my original optimistic estimates. But at least you know what’s coming down the pike, even if you don’t know when.

Version Features
X 1.0 The region concept will be replaced or supplemented by a much more general scheme. Color will be controlled by various properties of the orbit at each point, with selectable “operators” governing how each property influences the color at that point. Other interface changes will be introduced to make it easier to work with fractals. Some parameters that can only be changed in dialog boxes will be available in menus or directly in the fractal window. Also, the preview window that allows interactive real time exploration of Julia sets will be extended to allow interactive editing of many parameters. Many new built-in fractal types, plus a completely programmable fractal generator. Fractal generation will be sped up up by running on multiple processors whenever available. OpenCL fractal generation will be implemented where practical to achieve large speedups with supported GPUs.
X 2.0 Animation. QuickTime movies of fractal transformations can be made. Zooms, parameter transformations (i.e. what you see in the Preview window when you move the mouse around) or a combination of the two. Three dimensional rendering in various styles.