Generation and display of geometric fractals in 3-D

We present some straightforward algorithms for the generation and display in 3-D of fractal shapes. These techniques are very general and particularly adapted to shapes which are much more costly to generate than to display, such as those fractal surfaces defined by iteration of algebraic transformations. In order to deal with the large space and time requirements of calculating these shapes, we introduce a boundary-tracking algorithm particularly adapted for array-processor implementation. The resulting surfaces are then shaded and displayed using z-buffer type algorithms. A new class of displayable geometric objects, with great diversity of form and texture, is introduced by these techniques.