The Mandelbrot Experience

Explore the Mandelbrot set in real time. 

• Move up, down, left, right
• Zoom in and out
• Increase/decrease the zoom rate
• Change the color scheme
• Increase/decrease the rendering resolution

I started this project during COVID as I began teaching myself game development.  It is written in C++ and is its own game engine almost entirely from scratch.  It depends only on SDL2 as a wrapper for the operating system API.  It is still a work in progress and more updates are in the pipeline.

It should work an any modern computer.  Note, that it will not always render at 60 fps.  Increasing the zoom and the resolution significantly affects the processing load.

Notes:

• Play smaller version in browser
• Windows console is kept active for error reporting
• Linux version developed and tested on Ubuntu 22.04
• Windows and Ubuntu versions available for machines with a Nvidia GPU
• Nvidia Jetson Nano version
• Raspberry Pi version developed and tested on model 3B+
  • Smaller window size on Raspberry Pi to help with performance
  • No longer making updates for the Raspberry Pi

Future updates, in order of probability

• Eliminate the SDL2 dependency
• Ability to save screenshots
• Performance improvements
• More color schemes/animation
• Increased precision to allow for larger zoom ratios

Feel free to leave a comment or email me about any bugs or feature requests.

KEYBOARD:

W, A, S, D	Pan up, left, down, right
8, 4, 2, 6 (numpad)	Pan up, left, down, right
'+' (numpad)	Zoom in
'-' (numpad)	Zoom out
'*' (numpad)	Increase zoom speed
'/' (numpad)	Decrease zoom speed
Arrow up	Increase resolution
Arrow Down	Decrease resolution
Arrow left and right	Change colors
Esc	Close program

CONTROLLER

Right thumbstick	Pan up, left, down, right
Left thumbstick	Zoom in and out
Right trigger	Increase zoom speed
Left trigger	Decrease zoom speed
D-pad up	Increase resolution
D-pad down	Decrease resolution
D-pad left and right	Change colors
B buttton	Close program