Fractals in Microsoft Excel

Fractals in excel, has he gone mad? Well not entirely, excel may not be the ideal way to generate fractals but it can be done as this spreadsheet shows.

When the spreadsheet loads you will be presented with a graph containing a 'New Pattern' button. Every time you click on this button new parameters will be generated and the resulting pattern displayed. Please note that the download is 2.34mb but unpacks to a corpulent 9mb when unzipped, it requires Excel 97 upwards.

Download GWFractal.zip (2.34mb)

The algorithm I have used here was printed in PC Plus in September 1992. It generates an attractor with a fractal structure, a sample image is shown below.

 

Fractal Animation 1

This is a short (25 sec) animated sequence of a Julia fractal. It is best to set your media player to full screen and repeat (this can be found on the play menu (or use ctrl-T) in Windows Media Player). This video clip requires the DivX codec to be installed on your computer. This, together with more information about DivX, can be found at www.divx.com a link to download the free DivX 'Play Bundle' can be found near the top of this page.

Download Fractal Animation 1 (4.18mb)