Mandelbrot Set Explorer
40 comments
·March 15, 2025jbentley1
Zoom is jerky and the number of iterations don't automatically scale as I zoom in. Maybe I'm expecting too much for something that runs in the browser but seems like there is room for improvement.
kristiandupont
Maybe you like this one better: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/lsX3W4
jwr
This brings back memories of running Fractint on my i386/33 (that's 33MHz) and waiting for a full-resolution image to be generated…
trynix
Hello jwr!
I just came across your db48x comments, and since I couldn't reply there (old post), thought I'd catch you here :)
I saw that you're a fan of the hp48, and enjoy loading the different libraries. I recently got into the world of HP calculators, and have been really enjoying the learning experience on HP48GX (via Emu48 on my android).
I've been tinkering with some of the libraries, and would love some opinions on a couple of questions.
- I currently have on my list the following libraries: speedui, erable, alg48, qpi, solvesys, stat48pro. Do you suggest any other libraries to dabble with? Anything that'd improve tthe calculator capabilities in math statistics or finance, or general useful utilities (like SpeedUI). I also came across mathtools but not sure if it adds value. When trying to answer this question I also came across https://mrityunjay.tripod.com/OS/HPUX/hp48/part4/faq.html , but not sure if all said apps (mainly Application and Math ones) are decent and compatible or not.
- Is EQSTAK necessary if SpeedUI is installed, or not really? I ask because Erable suggests installing it, but I think speedui does the same thing?
Thanks :)
jwr
Hi, I haven't really used my HP48 much over the last years. I bought a bunch of HP50G calculators, and since those had most of the stuff I need preloaded, I took the easy path and I just use a stock HP50G these days. I've found that it has pretty much everything I need.
hermitcrab
I find the Mandlebrot set both fascinating and slightly existentially terrifying, in a way I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps the way some people feel when swimming in water when they can't see the bottom.
sizzzzlerz
The sense of infinity becomes more prevalent when looking at the image and all the tendrils stretching out. For the same reason, the idea that those tendrils trace back to the main body via infinitely thin channels always gives me the willies. A mandelbrot image makes me recall a statement someone once made about how not only is the universe strange, it's even stranger than we can imagine.
dogman1050
You too? I've always found it and other fractals disturbing in an undefined way. Maybe like a feeling of an infinite evil that persists in spite of me knowing it's just math.
Anyway, I first generated Mandlebrot sets in 1981 on an Ohio Scientific Challenger 1, printed out on an ASR33 via a homebrew current loop interface. <kerchunk>
dugmartin
That is the first mention of a Challenger 1 I’ve seen in quite a long time. My parents bought my older brother a Challenger 1p around 1978 and I learned to program on it. That thing was literally a tank. My brother had soldered on a joystick controller and hooked up our Sears pong paddle controller to it and showed me how to PEEK at the right address to read the value. It felt like magic to a 7 year old.
dogman1050
I still have it in my lab, right next to a PDP-11/05. I don't think I have a composite input monitor or NTSC TV around anymore to use as a display. I could rig something up.
adzm
Make sure you read the technical details as well: https://mandelbrot.site/how-mandelbrot-site-was-built
I was surprised that this appears to be calculated entirely on the CPU via Rust code rather than with a GPU shader. The multithreaded JavaScript is indeed interesting though.
dleeftink
Check out Hamsters.js[0] for a another convenient parallel processing library.
[0]: https://github.com/austinksmith/Hamsters.js/tree/master
chihuahua
This is also good, and allows drawing the corresponding Julia set for the point corresponding to your mouse pointer:
ralferoo
I've been interested in the Mandelbrot set for years, and years ago on the Amiga, I calculated hundreds of frames off line for a zoom along a path of a Julia-ish set and stored on the harddisk and played back in realtime.
Until seeing this website, I'd never even considered what different exponents might do to the image, and was pleased to find a nice logical pattern from changing it, even if the higher exponents don't necessarily have as much interesting stuff going on as you zoom in.
mg
Over the last months, I have been compiling a list of state of the art in Mandelbrot implementations that run in the browser:
https://github.com/no-gravity/WorldWideMandelbrot
Every solution has its pros and cons. I still have not seen one that allows deep zooms (The parent only allows up to 48x zoom for example), is written in JS (parent is written in Rust and then compiled to JS), is fast, has a UI that nicely works on mobile and allows to save arbitrarely high resolutions. If there is none, I'm planning to write one myself.
Thinking about it, this could also be an interesting test on how far AI has come. When will I be able to hand the above text to an LLM and get out an HTML page with all the code that satisfies the above criteria?
offsky
I tried adding deep zoom to mine, https://www.zazow.com but it became way too slow. Arbitrary precision math is just orders of magnitude slower, at least in the way that I understand it. I am not a mathematician.
hermitcrab
>When will I be able to hand the above text to an LLM and get out an HTML page with all the code that satisfies the above criteria?
I guess it depends how many humans have done the hard way, so the LLM can rip off their code?
thih9
The “technical details”[1] section says:
> Multibrot Sets: Beyond the traditional Mandelbrot set, users can explore multibrot sets by adjusting the exponent in the generating formula.
> Customizable Color Schemes: Users can personalize their visual experience by choosing different color schemes.
But I don’t see that option anywhere; did anyone find it? I’m on mobile if that matters.
johnisgood
"Color scheme" and "Adjust colors", tap on either, it is a dropdown menu. It shows up on desktop at least.
thih9
I don’t see “adjust colors” in mobile safari. Still, thanks, I’ll check it out on desktop later then.
chkas
This is mine in my programming language: https://easylang.online/apps/mandelbrot.html?v=hn1
petters
Seems to relatively quickly run into numerical problems: https://mandelbrot.site/?re=-0.7375916562086786&im=-0.189982...
EDIT: The number of iterations can be changed
thih9
Still, you cannot zoom in past a limit, this becomes noticeable around 800 or 1600 iterations.
E.g.: https://mandelbrot.site/?re=-0.7375916562086786&im=-0.189982...
flimflamm
Seems like there are some inaccuracies when zooming in. I don't think that Mandelbrot contains this kind of smooth features https://mandelbrot.site/?re=-0.11582128424197435&im=-0.88580...
ghewgill
Increase the iterations on the sidebar. You will then see more detail until you zoom in even further.
Reminds me of the time I typed in a Mandelbrot Set drawing program on a C-64 back in 1984, and let it run overnight to draw the set in 160x200 with 4 colors. I was amazed that it worked at all.