Surfing the web is one thing—you traverse a seemingly endless sea of information and digital distractions—but how about surfing an endless sea of fractal formations? Tom Beddard (or subblue), a UK-based designer who revels in the aesthetics of complexity, has created a web application called Fractal Lab using WebGL that allows you to explore 2D and 3D fractals in real-time within your web browser. The application renders fractal images using your GPU, allowing you to zoom in and out of various fractal types along with variations of these types in the fractal library. You can also change different parameters of the fractal, such as scale, smoothness, color and shading, along with its movement within the explorer—for instance, the camera roll and pitch. Then you can save either a single image or the fractal itself in the library. The application allows for free-form exploration of these generative landscapes, creating an environment where human whim joins forces with mathematical algorithms to create strikingly beautiful fractal topographies.Back in January, subblue released the video Surface Detail (below), which used Adobe’s programming language Pixel Bender with After Effects to create a stunning fractal animation. The idea of discovery and exploration that he chanced upon in the video has been expanded in Fractal Lab with the added feature of interaction. Users are no longer just passive observers in this generative fractal environment, but are able to guide the direction and outcome of the experience. We could see this project being pushed even further by adding the ability to create animations from these infinite worlds, which could then be exported and integrated into live visuals and other video-based work.If you want to launch from cyberspace into the fractal otherworlds, you’ll need to be using Google Chrome or Firefox 4 Beta, as well as have a modern graphics card. Check out the tutorial above, then begin your journey into the endless at fractal.io.