Makes me think of an old plaything of mine, but zoomed in: <a href="http://mackerron.com/snow-mo" rel="nofollow">http://mackerron.com/snow-mo</a> (hint: click and drag).
Those interested in physics-based simulation of snowflake growth should have a look at this page [1] with papers describing models to do so, in particular part II describes a two-dimensional model, part III a three-dimensional model. There also many rendered images and a couple of videos of the simulation results and even some code.<p>A lot of information can also be found on Kenneth G. Libbrecht's snowcrystals.com [2] including many snowflake photographs. Also the photographs of Alexey Kljatov [3] are quite well known.<p>[1] <a href="http://psoup.math.wisc.edu/Snowfakes.htm" rel="nofollow">http://psoup.math.wisc.edu/Snowfakes.htm</a><p>[2] <a href="http://snowcrystals.com" rel="nofollow">http://snowcrystals.com</a><p>[3] <a href="https://alexey-kljatov.pixels.com" rel="nofollow">https://alexey-kljatov.pixels.com</a>
Of all the stories posted today on HN, this is the only one I had any desire to click on.<p>Was more interesting than I expected too.<p>Thanks for posting.