Title: Draw a Sierpinski carpet in C#

This example shows how to draw a Sierpinski carpet, a type of fractal known as a gasket. The posts Draw a Sierpinski gasket in C# and Draw a Sierpinski triangle in C# shows two ways to draw a different kind of gasket.

The key is to Sierpinski's carpet is the following DrawRectangle method.

// Draw a carpet in the rectangle. private void DrawRectangle(Graphics gr, int level, RectangleF rect) { // See if we should stop. if (level == 0) { // Fill the rectangle. gr.FillRectangle(Brushes.Blue, rect); } else { // Divide the rectangle into 9 pieces. float wid = rect.Width / 3f; float x0 = rect.Left; float x1 = x0 + wid; float x2 = x0 + wid * 2f; float hgt = rect.Height / 3f; float y0 = rect.Top; float y1 = y0 + hgt; float y2 = y0 + hgt * 2f; // Recursively draw smaller carpets. DrawRectangle(gr, level - 1, new RectangleF(x0, y0, wid, hgt)); DrawRectangle(gr, level - 1, new RectangleF(x1, y0, wid, hgt)); DrawRectangle(gr, level - 1, new RectangleF(x2, y0, wid, hgt)); DrawRectangle(gr, level - 1, new RectangleF(x0, y1, wid, hgt)); DrawRectangle(gr, level - 1, new RectangleF(x2, y1, wid, hgt)); DrawRectangle(gr, level - 1, new RectangleF(x0, y2, wid, hgt)); DrawRectangle(gr, level - 1, new RectangleF(x1, y2, wid, hgt)); DrawRectangle(gr, level - 1, new RectangleF(x2, y2, wid, hgt)); } }

This method fills a rectangle. It starts by checking the level parameter. If level is 0, then the method is drawing one of the smallest rectangles. In that case, the method simply draws its rectangle and stops.

If level is greater than 0, the method divides its area into a 3 × 3 array of rectangles and then recursively calls itself to draw all but the middle one.

Download the example to experiment with it and to see additional details.