Sterlingware - fractal art software

This article is a sort of post-script to Year by Year 2000-2015 - Year 2000, to showcase some of the Sterlingware fractals created during that year.



   


Sterlingware was one of several free fractal-generating programs written by Stephen Ferguson that I tried out in 1999/2000. Although it had significant limitations from an artistic point of view, it did allow extensive exploration and experimentation using a limited combination of algorithms and colouring methods, producing some interesting and intriguing results.

The images generated are single-layer and have to be rendered to screen before anti-aliasing and saving as *.bmp files. On my current computer this process is quite fast - just a few minutes for an image around 3000x3000 pixels, but back in the day the process was much slower! Hence most of my renders from then are only about 450x450 pixels.

The lack of overall control, however, I now find quite frustrating, so I can't really see ever going back to this type of program to create new works.

   


If you want to try out Sterlingware, or one of the many others that are still available for download, you can find them here:

The Fractal Programs Paradise

You may need a utility to open the *.rar files - this one is handy and free: RAR File Open Knife 7.00




This on-line tutorial is very helpful for starting out:

Tim Hodkinson's Sterlingware Tutorial

   



In 2007/8 Tad Boniecki developed a follow-on program called Sterling2 (which I haven't yet tried), also available for free download with a beginners' tutorial on his website:

Sterling Instructions by Tad Boniecki

I understand the only real difference is that Sterling2 has a different set of formulas in its database to select from.


Here is a beautiful of another artist's Sterlingware fractals, posted on Deviantart:




Escape the Egg by cabbie666


and a few more from my own collection:


   





The full collection is stored in my St.ash here: sta.sh/21314ukwcsbq