A seed-based generative system for tiled dragon-curve compositions.

A catalogue of computational textile compositions for fashion, textile and surface design — algorithmically drawn, seed-documented, and ready for production.

Draconic Fractals is a generative design system rather than a single artwork. Each composition is built from a grid of tiles, each one containing a dragon curve — a famous fractal generated by repeatedly folding a line at right angles. Alternating tiles are rotated by 90°, and every segment is coloured from a small hue palette, producing a dense, tessellated field.

The system is designed for:

• Fashion houses adapting fractal ornament for apparel and accessories
• Textile studios developing repeat patterns and yardage
• Surface designers working across print, wallpaper, and interior applications

Every composition can be licensed, adapted, or commissioned to a brief.

A curve, when it is folded onto itself, becomes a dragon — recursive, self-similar, quietly yours.

The recursive curve — folded, re-folded, endlessly self-similar — has always carried the mark of a living system. From the spiral of a seashell to the branching of a river delta, natural forms build themselves by repeating a simple rule. Draconic Fractals translates that rule into code. Each composition begins with a tile grid and unfolds through recursion, rotation, and colour, until the frame fills with a tessellated field of dragon curves.

The recursion order, the tile skip pattern, and the hue palette are all derived from a single numeric seed.

Like the other still volumes in this series (Girih, Arachne, Celestial Grove, ChaotiColor, Citrus Mosaic, Crazy Knight Curve, Crazy Knight Line, Crazy Letter, cyPollock, Digital Pollen), Draconic Fractals is a static composition. The plate, the framed plate, the surfaces, and the archive are all static frames. A fractal is something you read; its character is stillness, not motion.

• Seed-based generation — every composition is defined by a numeric seed and can be regenerated exactly
• Deterministic output — the same seed always produces the same composition
• Dragon curve — the classic fractal: a line folded at right angles, one step at a time
• Tiled field — the curve is replicated on a grid of tiles, each orientation determined by the tile pattern
• Alternating rotation — odd tiles vertical, even tiles horizontal
• Four-colour palette — a base hue plus three offsets, so adjacent segments alternate colour
• Recursion orders 5–10 — from coarse (~32 tiles) to fine (~1,024 tiles)
• Curved segments — every segment is drawn as a quadratic curve, giving it a soft, hand-drawn feel
• Adaptive surfaces — one seed applied across print, scarf, textile, and wall formats
• Archive — eight curated seeds available for immediate loading
• Download — export the composition as a high-resolution PNG
• Keyboard shortcuts — R for new seed, S to save

.
├── index.html          # Main catalogue page
├── images/
│   ├── fav.svg         # Favicon
│   ├── tote.png        # Mockup: tote bag
│   ├── tee.png         # Mockup: t-shirt
│   └── cushion.png     # Mockup: cushion
└── README.md

A numeric seed (a large integer) initializes a deterministic pseudo-random generator. From this seed, the system derives:

• Recursion order (5–10)
• Tile skip pattern (1–5)
• Base hue (0–360°)
• Per-colour hue jitter (four values)

Because the generator is deterministic, the same seed always produces the same composition — on any device, at any time.

The dragon curve is a fractal generated by repeatedly folding a line at right angles. Starting from a single straight segment, each iteration replaces the entire curve with two copies of itself, joined at a 90° fold.

The algorithm is recursive:

1. If order == 0, the segment is a single straight line — done.
2. Otherwise, compute the midpoint of the current line.
3. Compute a "new midpoint" rotated by 90° around the original midpoint.
4. Recurse on both halves: (start → newMid) and (newMid → end).

The result after order iterations is a curve with 2^order segments. At order 5, that's 32 segments per tile; at order 10, that's 1,024 segments per tile.

The grid dimension is derived from the order:

size = 2^(order / 2)

This means:

• Order 5 → 5×5 grid
• Order 6 → 8×8 grid
• Order 8 → 16×16 grid
• Order 10 → 32×32 grid

The tile size is canvasWidth / size, so the full composition contains roughly 2^order segments in each dimension. At order 10, that's over 1 million individual line strokes across the frame — producing an extremely fine, textile-like detail.

Each tile contains a dragon curve, either oriented vertically or horizontally. The orientation is decided by a simple check:

blackTile = (x + y) % tileSkip === 0

If the tile is "black", it gets a vertical curve; otherwise horizontal. The tileSkip value (1–5) controls the density of orientation changes:

• tileSkip = 1 → every tile is vertical → uniform field
• tileSkip = 2 → alternating checkerboard of orientations
• tileSkip = 3, 4, 5 → more complex interference patterns

Four colours are generated from a base hue, each one offset by a different random jitter:

All four are drawn in HSL space with fixed saturation (0.8) and lightness (0.5), so the palette reads as a coherent family. Adjacent segments alternate colour, giving the curve a woven, kaleidoscopic feel.

Each segment of the dragon curve is drawn not as a straight line, but as a quadratic curve — two connected quadratic Bézier arcs between the endpoints. This gives the curve a soft, drawn quality, as if the fractal had been sketched rather than plotted.

The same seed is rendered across four surface formats. These are static frames — they represent the print-ready composition.

Each surface uses the same underlying seed and structural logic — only the repeat, orientation, and scale change.

Like the rest of the still volumes, Draconic Fractals does not animate. The plate is a single frozen frame — the composition is complete the moment it is generated.

This is a deliberate design choice. A fractal is not a swarm. It is not a rotation. It is a curve, folded once and left. Its stillness is what makes it print-ready in the strictest sense: what you see is what you get.

1. Open index.html in any modern browser.
2. Click New Seed to generate a new composition.
3. Click Download to save the composition as a PNG.
4. Scroll to the Archive section and click any plate to load it into Plate 001.

Each composition is identified by an 8-digit seed label displayed in the metadata panel. To reproduce a specific composition, note the seed and regenerate it programmatically:

const rng = new RandomGenerator(seed);
const features = buildFeatures(rng);
renderComposition(canvas, features, rng);

Because the generator is deterministic, this will produce the identical composition on any device.

• No build step. The system is a single HTML file with inline CSS and JavaScript.
• No dependencies. All drawing is done with the native Canvas 2D API.
• Deterministic. The RandomGenerator class uses a xorshift-based PRNG seeded by an integer, so identical seeds produce identical outputs.
• Static rendering. Every canvas renders a single frame. There is no animation loop.
• Feature isolation. Cover, framed plate, surfaces, and archive thumbnails each derive their own feature set from their own local RNG, without disturbing the main plate's state.
• Bounded recursion. The dragon curve recursion has a fixed depth (5–10), so even at the highest order the recursion is shallow and safe.
• Segment normalization. After generating all segments, the system computes the bounding box and scales the whole curve to fit the canvas with 5% padding.
• Curved segments. Each segment is drawn as two connected quadratic Béziers, giving the fractal a soft, drawn quality.
• Responsive. The layout adapts from large desktop down to very small mobile devices (tested at 360px viewport width).
• Accessible. Supports prefers-reduced-motion. Pinch-zoom is enabled.

Tested in current versions of:

• Chrome / Edge
• Firefox
• Safari (desktop and iOS)

All Draconic Fractals compositions are seed-documented and available for licensing across textile, surface, and print applications.

• Standard licenses cover single-product production runs.
• Commercial use, custom editions, or exclusive rights are available on request.

Each license is issued against a specific seed ID. Regeneration of the same seed produces the identical composition — ensuring reproducibility between artist, studio, and manufacturer.

For licensing enquiries: [email protected]

Draconic Fractals is a generative design system, not a fixed artwork. It can be adapted for specific briefs:

To begin a conversation: [email protected]

Draconic Fractals is part of a computational textile series. Each volume approaches ornament from a different structural angle:

The series is designed as a coherent whole — same page structure, same seed logic, same licensing and commission terms — so that each volume can be presented individually or as part of a larger body of work.

• Design & Generative System — Reyhaneh Daneshdoost
• Typefaces — Cormorant Garamond · DM Mono
• Platform — Reyrove Studio
• Edition — Draconic Fractals, Autumn 2026

Where technical obstacles were encountered, AI tools were used for debugging and code optimization. Every structural, aesthetic, and conceptual decision remained the artist's own.

• Website — reyrove.github.io
• Instagram — @rey._.rove
• LinkedIn — Reyhaneh Daneshdoost
• X — @reyrove

© Draconic Fractals · All compositions reproducible by seed · Computational Textile Design