Dragon Curve Creation

The idea of making a dragon curve fractal is very simple at first it might be a little confusing but once the idea is perceive it will come easy and look amazing.

Step One: Draw a line and then rotate the coy of this line 90 degrees( always clockwise) and attach it to the end of the first line.



Here the black line is the first line then the red line is the rotated line in 90 degrees but in clockwise.

Step Two: We now have an L shaped line. Rotate a copy of this ENTIRE line 90 degrees, and attach it to the end as in Step 1.



The number of lines it takes to draw this fractal doubles with each iteration. It is important to always rotate a copy of the entire previous shape and attach it to the end of the previous iteration.

Step Three: We now have a backwards question mark. Rotate a copy of this ENTIRE line 90 degrees, and attach it to the end of the previous step.



Hopefully now you’re beginning to get the idea. This next iteration is where it gets a bit tricky.

Step Four: Repeat Step Three for the ENTIRE new line we’ve constructed.



As you can see our rotated segment intersects with the previous step to form a box. While the Dragon Curve never crosses itself, there are a number of intersections like the one in this step.

Step Five: Repeat Step Three for the ENTIRE new line we’ve constructed.



By five iterations we’re starting to get an idea of the whole shape. As in all of the previous drawings, the section in red is the rotated copy, and the black is the previous stage. Let’s see a couple more iterations:

Step Six: Repeat Step Three for the ENTIRE new line we’ve constructed.



Step Seven: Repeat Step Three for the ENTIRE new line we’ve constructed.




As you can see the seventh iteration is starting to show a bit of its final shape pattern. Once we repeat this process we will get a much more resolution version of the curve.

Here is an example.
I made this in Photoshop and only use a line then duplicated it and followed the instruction i mention.