Artforms of Nature and fractals

The nineteen century German biologist Ernst Haeckel is famous for his fantastically illustrated book Artforms of Nature. The copyright for this book from 1904 has now expired and thanks to Wikimedia Commons it is available for everyone to appreciate.

Haekel's artistic interpretation of the biological forms he studied have a clarity of symmetry and detail that has been a source of inspiration for many artists and engineers over the years. They provide the perfect subject matter for Photoshop plugin Pixel Bender Fractal Explorer. The plugin was created by Tom Beddard.

Below, you can see the original image of Ophiodea (to the left) and fractal based on the original images, which created with help of Pixel Bender Fractal Explorer. The fractal has the same symmetry as the original image.

Another example, the Phaeodaria and two fractals, which are based on it. Fractals have another type of symmetry, but, nevertheless, they are look very natural.