13.7. SummaryFractal models are used today to predict many kinds of systems that show chaotic behavior, such as the weather, population growth, or brain waves. We used the Mandelbrot set here because it is simple to generate, yet nicely demonstrates all characteristics of a fractal object. The program could be easily adapted to generate other fractal objects by changing the iteration formula. Fractal geometry and its many applications were not, of course, the primary goal of this chapter. (Entire books have been written on the subject; we have only scratched the surface here.) More important are the insights you have gained into methods for achieving increased performance through the creation of multiple communicating processesmore specifically, for processes that may have widely differing processing requirements and irregular output timing. |