Fractal landscapes

The imaginary landscapes created here are simply Fourier sums whose amplitudes are chosen randomly from certain distributions. The techniques are all quite standard, but given the very limited computing and graphic environment available, the low resolution images shown here are unable to convey the true capability of the method for generating realistic virtual scenery.

User controls are a button for generating a new scene, sliders for changing the maximum height, the overall "roughness" of the scene, and the grid size (and the consequent number of Fourier components). Drag with the mouse to change the view direction and elevation. (Larger lattices can require considerable computation.)

A Java3D version of this demonstration is also available.