This volume describes the status of fractal imaging research and looks to future directions. It will be useful to researchers in the areas of fractal image compression, analysis, and synthesis, iterated function systems, and fractals in education. In particular it includes a vision for the future of these areas. It aims to provide an efficient means by which researchers can look back over the last decade at what has been achieved, and look forward towards second-generation fractal imaging. The articles in themselves are not meant to be detailed reviews or expositions, but to serve as signposts to the state of the art in their areas. What is important is what they mention and what tools and ideas are seen now to be relevant to the future. The contributors, a number of whom have been involved since the start, are active in fractal imaging, and provide a well-informed viewpoint on both the status and the future. Most were invited participants at a meeting on Fractals in Multimedia held at the IMA in January 2001.
Some goals of the mini-symposium, shared with this volume, were to demonstrate that the fractal viewpoint leads to a broad collection of useful mathematical tools, common themes, new ways of looking at and thinking about existing algorithms and applications in multimedia, and to consider future developments. This book should be useful to commercial and university researchers in the rapidly evolving field of digital imaging, specifically, chief information officers, professors, software engineers, and graduate students in the mathematical sciences. While much of the content is quite technical, it contains pointers to the state-of-the-art and the future in fractal imaging.