Comments on: The World Loses Its Great Fractal Mind, Benoit Mandelbrot, at 85 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/10/18/the-world-loses-its-great-fractal-mind-benoit-mandelbrot-at-85/ Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:34:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Bill Dale http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/10/18/the-world-loses-its-great-fractal-mind-benoit-mandelbrot-at-85/#comment-22849 Bill Dale Sat, 24 Mar 2012 13:43:34 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/?p=21436#comment-22849 Fractals are generated on computers. Similarly, there are computer-generated images called "Magic Eye", or "Stare-e-ogram" images, which are hauntingly beautiful. A Stare-e-ogram looked like a plane of random colors and shapes until you focused your left eye on one area of the image, and your right eye either slightly to the right, or slightly to the left on the same image-- suddenly, stereoscopic images with amazing psychological effect would pop from the page. I would spend hours looking at the Stare-e-ograms published every Sunday in the Los Angeles Times, and creating some of my own with simple software. The first computer I ever had that I actually made any use of-- an IBM 286 that was cobbled together from parts-- was terribly simple by todays standards, but was quite capable of creating some wonderful pictures. That computer only had a minuscule 43 megabyte hard drive, and a few kilobytes of memory, but that was enough to create lots of Stare-e-ograms for me. I tried looking around recently for a Stare-e-ogram program that would work on today's computers, but had no luck. Are any available? Fractals are generated on computers. Similarly, there are computer-generated images called “Magic Eye”, or “Stare-e-ogram” images, which are hauntingly beautiful. A Stare-e-ogram looked like a plane of random colors and shapes until you focused your left eye on one area of the image, and your right eye either slightly to the right, or slightly to the left on the same image– suddenly, stereoscopic images with amazing psychological effect would pop from the page. I would spend hours looking at the Stare-e-ograms published every Sunday in the Los Angeles Times, and creating some of my own with simple software.

The first computer I ever had that I actually made any use of– an IBM 286 that was cobbled together from parts– was terribly simple by todays standards, but was quite capable of creating some wonderful pictures. That computer only had a minuscule 43 megabyte hard drive, and a few kilobytes of memory, but that was enough to create lots of Stare-e-ograms for me.

I tried looking around recently for a Stare-e-ogram program that would work on today’s computers, but had no luck. Are any available?

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