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IFSRender

Languages/frameworks used: PHP, MySQL, HTML, C#, Java

IFSRender is a small web application that draws fractals based on iterated function systems. These tend to generate fractals with a high degree of self-similarity and structure.

The web-based front-end was written in PHP, using MySQL to keep track of fractals that had been generated previously and cached. The back-end was initially written in C#, but was ported to Java so that it could be run on a Linux server. Rendering the fractals takes an appreciable amount of processing power, so I hosted the fractal renderer on my own computer rather than online.

On the main interface, the user could specify the width and height of the generated image, as well as a random seed that determined the shape of the fractal. When the user submits the form, this information is validated by the server, and then it calls the Java program that renders the image. The validation was necessary because the information the user enters needs to be passed as command-line arguments.

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