I Need A New Computer To Draw Fractals!

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes (E. W. Dijkstra)

Some days ago I published a post about how to build fractals with R using Multiple Reduction Copt Machine (MRCM) algorithm. Is that case I used a feature of the grid package that allows you to locate objects easily into the viewPort avoiding to work with coordinates. It does not work well if you want to divide your seed image into five subimages located in the vertex of a regular pentagon. No problem: after refreshing some trigonometric formulas and after understanding how to work with coordinates I felt strong enough to program the Final-MRCM-Fractal-Builder. But here comes the harsh reality. My computer crashes when I try to go beyond five degrees of depth. Imposible. In the example of Sierpinski’s triangle, where every square in divided into three small ones, I reached seven degrees of depth. I am deeply frustrated. These are drawings for 1, 2, 3 and 5 degrees of depth.

Rplot01c Rplot02c Rplot03cRplot05c

Please, if someone modifies code to make it more efficient, let me know. I used circles in this case instead squares. Here you have it:

library(grid)
grid.newpage()
rm(list = ls())
ratio <- 0.4
pmax <- 5 # Depth
vp1 <- viewport(w=1, h=1)
vp2 <- viewport(w=ratio, h=ratio, just=c(0.75*sin(2*pi*1/5)+0.5, 0.75*cos(2*pi*1/5)+0.75*pi*1/5))
vp3 <- viewport(w=ratio, h=ratio, just=c(0.75*sin(2*pi*0/5)+0.5, 0.75*cos(2*pi*0/5)+0.75*pi*1/5))
vp4 <- viewport(w=ratio, h=ratio, just=c(0.75*sin(2*pi*2/5)+0.5, 0.75*cos(2*pi*2/5)+0.75*pi*1/5))
vp5 <- viewport(w=ratio, h=ratio, just=c(0.75*sin(2*pi*3/5)+0.5, 0.75*cos(2*pi*3/5)+0.75*pi*1/5))
vp6 <- viewport(w=ratio, h=ratio, just=c(0.75*sin(2*pi*4/5)+0.5, 0.75*cos(2*pi*4/5)+0.75*pi*1/5))
pushViewport(vp1)
grid.rect(gp=gpar(fill="white", col=NA))
m <- as.matrix(expand.grid(rep(list(2:6), pmax)))
for (j in 1:nrow(m))
{
for(k in 1:ncol(m)) {pushViewport(get(paste("vp",m[j,k],sep="")))}
grid.circle(gp=gpar(col="dark grey", lty="solid", fill=rgb(sample(0:255, 1),sample(0:255, 1),sample(0:255, 1), alpha= 95, max=255)))
upViewport(pmax)
}

4 thoughts on “I Need A New Computer To Draw Fractals!

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