This is actually something pretty amazing, a 3d julia set fractal, being raytraced in real time on the GPU. Although, as the original author Keenan Crane’s own answer to the question “why would you want to render quaternion julia fractals on the GPU?”. He states that there are two problems with quaternion julia sets, the first is that they take forever to visualize, and the second is that they are not useful for anything. We can solve problem number one using ray tracing and the GPU: the GPU is really good at doing lots of things in parallel as long as none of those things depend on each other. Ray tracing is a great application of the GPU because each ray can work independently. Problem number two, however, is an open research problem.
It was Tom Beddard in a graphics experiment who built upon the concept and developed a Pixel Bender plugin (that you can download here), which is very fun indeed inside of Photoshop, and After Effects. For those unfamiliar with Pixel Bender, it is Adobe technology that allows image processing algorithms in hardware, or GPU, not CPU for a much more responsive experience… finally! I have a lot to say about GPU processed effects and plugins, part of which starts with “It seriously is about time that Adobe jumped on that wagon…” but I will leave that all for another post perhaps.
Quartz Composer Quaternion Julia GPU Ray Tracer with AO from subBlue on Vimeo.
