Fractal Glossary

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Fractal glossary

Arbitrary precisionMath with a configurable number of significant digits/bits.

AttractorA set toward which a dynamical system evolves.

Bailout radiusThreshold beyond which an orbit is guaranteed to escape.

Box-counting dimensionScale exponent estimated from occupied grid boxes.

CardioidHeart-shaped curve; Mandelbrot’s largest component.

Complex numbera+bi, with real and imaginary components.

Critical orbitOrbit of a map’s critical point; z=0 controls quadratic Mandelbrot membership.

Distance estimationEstimate of distance to a fractal boundary or implicit surface.

Escape timeIterations before an orbit exceeds the bailout threshold.

Fractal dimensionScale-sensitive notion of dimension; multiple definitions exist.

IterationRepeated application of a rule.

Julia setBoundary of complex dynamics for a fixed parameter.

MagnificationScale ratio between reference and zoomed view.

Misiurewicz pointParameter whose critical orbit is strictly preperiodic.

OrbitSequence produced by repeated application of a map.

Orbit trapColoring based on proximity of an orbit to chosen geometry.

Parabolic pointNeutral periodic behavior at a bifurcation boundary.

PerturbationCompute nearby deep-zoom pixels as differences from a reference orbit.

Ray marchingAdaptive ray traversal through an implicit distance field.

Series approximationApproximate multiple perturbation iterations in one algebraic step.

Self-similarityStructure resembling itself across scales.

SupersamplingMultiple subpixel samples combined to reduce aliasing.

ViewportMathematical rectangle currently mapped to the screen.