Strange 0.5

Strange shows a gallery of Clifford Attractors. Each image is formed by beginning with an (x, y) point, and repeatedly applying the following transformation to it:

new x = sin(ay) + c cos(ax)
new y = sin(bx) + d cos(by)

Each set of coefficients {a, b, c, d} produces a different image. This program tries to automatically search for "interesting" attractors - those that generate images that are not too sparse - and displays them in a gallery.

As the transformation is applied over and over again, the point traces out a path, curving first in one direction and then another, returning over and over again to each region of the image. By plotting each point, an image of the attractor is generated.

The points are colored based on the "velocity" of the point - the hue represents what direction the point moved in when the transformation was applied, and the saturation of each pixel represents the magnitude of the velocity. The brightness of each pixel is determined based on how many points were plotted in that pixel.