Mandelbrot Set Explorer (wgpu + winit)

A GPU-accelerated Mandelbrot set explorer I had always dreamed to make. Implemented using wgpu and winit.

Screenshots

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More screenshots

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-1.7692784002942480992+0.00331152861491198873i

Features

• Real-time rendering of Mandelbrot and Julia sets
• Zooming and panning
• Adjustable iteration depth
• Fullscreen mode
• Pretty colors

Controls

Action	Input
Move	W A S D
Zoom	Mouse scroll
Zoom at cursor	Ctrl + mouse scroll
Toggle Mandelbrot/Julia	Spacebar
Toggle color rotation	Q
Reset view	R
Decrease iterations (100)	, (comma)
Increase iterations (100)	. (period)
Fullscreen toggle	F11
Exit	Esc

Technical Details

Implementation

• Uses wgpu so should work on all platforms with Vulkan/Metal/DX12
• f64 usage prevented me from porting it to web
  • May not work on your GPU due to that
• View precision limited to ~4.3 × 10¹³ (floating point limits)

Building and Running

Prerequisites

• Rust toolchain (install via rustup)
• System with Vulkan/Metal/DX12 support
• GPU with double-precision support (most dedicated GPUs)

Installation

Build from source:

git clone https://github.com/zohnannor/mandelbrot-explorer-wgpu
cd mandelbrot-explorer-wgpu
cargo run --release

Using cargo:

cargo install --git https://github.com/zohnannor/mandelbrot-explorer-wgpu
mandelbrot-explorer-wgpu

Performance Notes

• Higher iteration counts provide more detail but reduce performance in certain areas of complex plane

TODO

• Automatic max iterations
• Palettes?
• Ability to enter coordinates
  • And copy current

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT)

at your option.