title: 3D Animation of Fractals
body: <p>I'm giving a presentation on Fractal Antennas (take a look at my previous threads) in November and I wanted to incorporate some animation to make my presentation easier to visualize the content I am referring to. Most of these animations would be relatively short, probably a minute long at the most. There are a few animations that would be fantastic to have:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>Fractal Mountains - The animation continues to add new iterations that depict the complex features of a mountain range.</p></li>
  <li><p>Fractal Koch Curve - The animation begins with an initiator (triangle) and adds new iterations. Either I slowly bring in the new fractal that has the next iteration, or I use the same model and users can see the iterations branching outward. I would prefer the latter technique.</p></li>
  <li><p>Show a fractal. Increase the iteration, while keeping a constant length, to vindicate the fractal shrinking in size.</p></li>
  <li><p>Show a fractal. Increase the iteration, while keeping a constant size, to vindicate the fractal is increasing it's total perimeter length.</p></li>
  <li><p>Cell phone animation - show a cell phone that has multiple antennas popping out (they can be simple sketches of lines).</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>The trouble is, I've never done ANY animation before. In the programs I have already, they generate the coordinates of the fractals, if that can be of some use?</p>
  
  <p>What is the best way to render those animations in the shortest time possible? The presentation is almost 6 weeks away! Blender might be an option, but I have no idea of how to go about this.</p>
  
  <p>There are some great animations in <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/hunting-hidden-dimension.html" rel="nofollow">this</a> NOVA video that might give you an idea of what I'm after.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks,</p>
  
  <p>Austin</p>