Orbit a three-dimensional fractal lit with soft shadows and ambient occlusion. Change its power to see repeating lobes become fine surface detail, then refine the image for a sharper still.
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Places to start
Each example restores the default settings, keeps your palette and resets the view. Then explore one control at a time.
Classic power 8
The best-known Mandelbulb. Orbit the whole object and look for smaller bulbs repeating across its surface.
Power 4
Compare the broader lobes of power 4 with the classic bulb. Changing only the power reshapes the whole silhouette.
Power 12
More closely spaced lobes, seen from 30° above. Compare its repeated structure with power 8.
Understanding the Mandelbulb
The Mandelbulb extends the Mandelbrot set's repeated squaring into three dimensions using spherical coordinates: each step raises a point's distance from the centre to a power and multiplies its angles by the same power. Power changes the overall structure; iterations refine the boundary. Integer and fractional powers can produce quite different surfaces.
How this view is drawn
The renderer estimates the distance from each point to the Mandelbulb's surface and marches a ray through every pixel until it reaches the surface or leaves the scene. Surface normals, soft shadows and ambient occlusion reveal depth. Colour follows how close each point's orbit passes to the coordinate axes, mapped onto the palette you choose.
When the view is still, the renderer can average several slightly offset samples per pixel to smooth edges. Moving the camera or changing a setting restarts that accumulation, so frame your view first and use Refine image last.
Choose detail deliberately
Power and bailout
Power sets the shape. Bailout is the distance at which a point counts as escaped; most views look best near the default of 4.
Colour detail, ambient occlusion and shadows
These change colour and lighting, not the fractal's shape. Colour detail stretches the palette across the surface; lower shadow and occlusion strength for a softer look.
Iterations and minimum distance
More iterations and a smaller minimum distance reveal finer surface detail but add work to every surface, shadow and normal calculation.
Samples and normal precision
Samples smooth edges over several frames. Normal precision sets how finely surface angles are measured; very small values are not always better because floating-point precision is finite.
Navigate on a phone or desktop
On a computer, drag to orbit and scroll to zoom; the settings stay beside the view. On a phone, use Controls to open the settings sheet. Zoom buttons work without gestures. Tap Interact to orbit with one finger or zoom with two fingers; tap it again to return to normal page scrolling. Fullscreen gives the fractal more room while keeping your settings. Reset view restores the camera without changing your power, palette or lighting.
If rendering is slow or unavailable
Keep one sample and around 100 iterations while you look around, and lower them on slower phones. This explorer needs WebGL 2; if it cannot start, the examples and explanations on this page still apply.