What are fractal terrains?
Drawing landscapes with computers was one of the first artistic uses envisaged for fractals. Mandelbrot himself has made some studies, and some other authors have written programs with spectacular results. Fractal landscapes have been used, for example, in Star Trek II. One of the best known creators of fractal landscapes is Ken Musgrave, who worked first with Mandelbrot. This topic is generally called “fractal terrains”. The use of fractals is obvious in this field because, if you travel or zoom in such a landscape, it will show you even more details owing to its fractal structure. The simplest algorithm, which has several variants, is named “midpoint displacement”. To understand this algorithm, it is better to start by drawing something resembling a ridge line in the horizon. The following pseudo-code and images are excerpts of the page by Paul Martz (by courtesy of the author; see reference below): One-dimensional midpoint displacement is a great algorithm for drawing a ridgeline, a
