The Lorenz attractor is a set of three differential equations that define a path in tridimentional space:
Given a 3D point in space (x,y,z) at time t0, you can calculate the next point t1 by using a numerical iterative method (such as Runge-Kutta). If you apply this again and again you can generate a set of points that can be rendered and animated.
So what about it? This path has a "butterfly" shape and exhibits chaotic properties, a small change in the initial point can lead to completely different (and apparently random) paths.
Under OSX, having Xcode installed.
Under Linux: sudo apt-get install freeglut3-dev libgles2-mesa-dev
$ make
$ ./lorenz
- Space: Play/Pause
- ESC: Exit
- Mouse: Rotate
- Keys 1-5: Several presets.
- +/-: Zoom
- u: Animation mode (Full graph, start to current, trail)
- r/t: Animation speed
- y: Restart animation.
- o: Line mode (Point/Line/Triangles)
- p: Show graph of projection to each axis.
