Iterated Function System

Iterated Function System

In mathematics, iterated function systems or IFSs are a method of constructing fractals; the resulting constructions are always self-similar.

IFS fractals, as they are normally called, can be of any number of dimensions, but are commonly computed and drawn in 2D. The fractal is made up of the union of several copies of itself, each copy being transformed by a function (hence "function system"). The canonical example is the Sierpinski gasket also called the Sierpinski triangle. The functions are normally contractive which means they bring points closer together and make shapes smaller. Hence the shape of an IFS fractal is made up of several possibly-overlapping smaller copies of itself, each of which is also made up of copies of itself, ad infinitum. This is the source of its self-similar fractal nature.

Read more about Iterated Function System:  Definition, Properties, Constructions, Examples, History

Famous quotes containing the words iterated, function and/or system:

    The customary cry,
    ‘Come buy, come buy,’
    With its iterated jingle
    Of sugar-bated words:
    Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)

    It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.
    Robert H. [Houghwout] Jackson (1892–1954)

    The golden mean in ethics, as in physics, is the centre of the system and that about which all revolve, and though to a distant and plodding planet it be an uttermost extreme, yet one day, when that planet’s year is completed, it will be found to be central.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)