hideThis article has multiple issues. Please help or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: – ···scholar·JSTOR(May 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines for products and services. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources: – ···scholar·JSTOR(August 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Parts of this article (those related to logo and screenshot) need to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(October 2016)
(Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Ultra Fractal is a fractal generation and rendering software application. The program was the first publicly available fractal software which featured layering methods previously only found in image editing software.[1] Because of this the program has become popular for use in the creation of fractal art.
Ultra Fractal is commercial software, but an evaluation version is freely available. The unregistered version creates watermarked renders.
Example of a multi-layered fractal made with Ultra Fractal
Zoom animation
Selection box
Ultra Fractal is raster based.[2]
The program works using a similar paradigm to Photoshop, allowing multiple layers to be combined using layer blending modes, transformations and custom fractal formulas. Fractal formulas, coloring algorithms and transformations may be written by users and a large number of such formula files are available in a public formula database. Fractals may be copied from the interface and pasted as plain text into an email. There is a busy mailing list on which many users post their parameter sets.[citation needed]
Calculation using arbitrary precision arithmetic is supported, allowing users to zoom to a magnification of 104000.
The GUI is customizable with a dockable MDI. The software calculates statistics about the fractal that is being previewed. Other features include fullscreen mode, color cycling, a render queue, distributed rendering calculations and a detailed help file. Version 4 added support for animations and improved flame fractal rendering.