Fractal Grower

Fractal Grower is Java software for growing Lindenmayer substitution (L-systems) fractals. In its default mode, the software displays an interface for simple L-Systems which can be modeled by paper folding. This interface is appropriate for teaching fractals to elementary and middle school students.

The full L-System interface (selectable by menu) is more appropriate for high school and university students.

An L-system is a formal grammar (a set of rules and symbols) most famously used to model the growth processes of plants. Changes to the library of preset parameters will quickly yield beautiful fractal images of such variety that it is unlikely that what you create has ever been seen before.

By Joel Castellanos, Department of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
The paper folding system is based on a lecture given by Heinz-Otto Peitgen of the CeVis Research Center at the University of Bremen, Germany.

Click here to run the Fractal Grower software in Java WebStart

Some systems might take a few minutes to start the software.
It might appear that nothing is happening, but please be patient.
If you click the run button 10 or 15 times, then your system will try too start 10 or 15 copies of Fractal Grower.

If you want to download the software to run it locally, then click on Fractal.jar

Both the paper folding fractals and the more general L-system fractals can be created with this same software. Select which type of fractal you want from the Fractal menu.

Level 17 of the Dragon - a Paper Folding Fractal pattern that results from folding a strip of paper exactly in-half seventeen times, and then opening it up so that each fold makes a 90° angle.
Level 11 of a Paper Folding Fractal that results from Alternating between folding to the Left at 90° and then to the Right at 120°. Always folding exactly in-half.


Levels 1 through 5 of an L-system fractal with the substitution rule: f=|[5+f][7-f]-|[4+f][6-f]-|[3+f][5-f]-|f

Paper Folding Fractals:

L-Systems:


Further Reading:
The paper folding part of the software and documentation above are based on a lecture given at Rice University in the spring of 1994 by Heinz-Otto Peitgen of the CeVis Research Center at the University of Bremen, Germany. CeVis is well known for its many documents concerning Chaos Theory and Fractal Geometry. Several books are available which offer an easy-to-understand introduction to these topics. Besides that, there are several video films available.
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