3D fractal
KIFS cube
Live turntable captured from Spiralyst Lab.
The cube variant tunes the same kaleidoscopic engine toward boxy, right-angled, circuit-board recursion. It is the most technological-looking of the crystalline fractals, like the inside of a microchip that was never designed, only iterated.
Circuitry That Built Itself
The cubic member of the KIFS family tunes the shared kaleidoscope toward boxy, right-angled, circuit-board recursion: orthogonal struts and scaffolding that looks engineered rather than grown, like a microchip die under a microscope or the inside of a computer that was never designed, only iterated. It is the most 'technological' of the crystalline fractals.
As with the octa variant, the cubic look comes from the preset's larger scale, offset and a rotation applied to the common abs-fold-and-sort kaleidoscope — not from genuinely cubic fold planes. A non-zero rotation is essential here: folded perfectly flat, the cube preset can collapse into a dull solid block, and it is the rotation and offset that open it into recursive lattice-work.
It ray-marches with the family's accumulated-scale distance estimator, so even deep recursion stays interactive.
The shared kaleidoscopic fold; the cube preset simply scales and offsets it more, with a rotation in the y–z plane.
A larger scale (≈3) and offset (≈1.2) plus a y–z rotation give the boxy, strut-like recursion.
In Spiralyst Lab
Same controls as the other KIFS types; the cube preset uses a larger scale and offset and a y–z rotation. Because a flat fold renders as a dull solid, keep the rotation non-zero — Spiralyst Lab orbits it, and a little rotation reveals the recursive circuitry inside.
Every parameter below is a live control — set it by hand, map it to a frequency band, or let it ride a smooth animation. These ranges are the actual in-app slider limits.
| Parameter | Range (in-app) |
|---|---|
| Scale | 1.5 – 3.5 |
| Offset x | 0 – 2 |
| Offset y | 0 – 2 |
| Offset z | 0 – 2 |
| Rot xz | -3.1416 – 3.1416 |
| Rot yz | -3.1416 – 3.1416 |
| Iterations | 5 – 12 |
| Surface ε | 0.0001 – 0.01 |
| Ray steps | 32 – 256 |
Audio-reactive by default: rotXZ -π→π, uScale 1.5→3.5. Any control can be mapped to audio or animation.
Plus the universal 3D controls every ray-marched type shares: camera (yaw, pitch, distance, FOV) and lighting (light direction, ambient, fog density, glow falloff).
Watch it in action
assets/video/fractals/21-kifs-cube.mp4
Did you know: Give the KIFS cube the right offset and it starts to look uncannily like the interior of a computer — endless recursive circuitry that no one designed.