Fractal Lab started around the beginning of 2011 as my first explorations rendering fractals in the browser with WebGL. Previously I had created renderers using Adobe PixelBender and QuartzComposer, which both had the advantage of easy integration into Photoshop and AfterEffects but were very limited when it came to interactively exploring the fractal space. Fractals are by nature highly detailed and so the smallest change to an input parameter can often result in dramatic differences in the output shape. In order to properly explore the space (and discover hidden gems that coalesce at specific parameter combinations) I decided to build a new UI (that had to nice to use!), a control system and a new GLSL renderer in WebGL to take advantage of the parallel computing power of the GPU in a web browser. The first version of Fractal Lab was a proof of concept to show that you could modify and fly around the fractals in the browser at interactive speeds.

Fractal Lab started around the beginning of 2011 as my first explorations rendering fractals in the browser with WebGL. Previously I had created renderers using Adobe PixelBender and QuartzComposer, which both had the advantage of easy integration into Photoshop and AfterEffects but were very limited when it came to interactively exploring the fractal space. Fractals are by nature highly detailed and so the smallest change to an input parameter can often result in dramatic differences in the output shape. In order to properly explore the space (and discover hidden gems that coalesce at specific parameter combinations) I decided to build a new UI (that had to nice to use!), a control system and a new GLSL renderer in WebGL to take advantage of the parallel computing power of the GPU in a web browser. The first version of Fractal Lab was a proof of concept to show that you could modify and fly around the fractals in the browser at interactive speeds.