Well, not quite. The search for the true mandelbrot set 3D equivilant is still ongoing. While the Mandelbulb we have today sure looks spectacular, and has many equivilants to the 2D counterpart, there are still some issues with it. The mandelbrot set has full self similarity, or at any level it looks the same. While there are examples of this on the mandelbulb, such as the nested bulbs, there are also stretched out areas where its not entirely self similar. The mandelbulb set isn't perfect, but it sure is spectacular.
It's also worth mentioning that the distance estimator we have isn't perfect either. There are many artefacts produced, and the way I implemented it makes it entirely limited to the floating point number. It starts to break down when you get beyond a certain point due to the way computers store numbers to a certain accuracy
I intend to release this program on steam, or maybe another platform in the future, but it likely wont be for a while. I want to make a few quality of life features, such as menus and settings, so that it is entirely accessible. I also want to make a bunch of performance optimizations, so that it can run even faster. Theres the possibility that I rewrite it to use something other than floats, but in the meantime we're limited to that. I will update this page with more development/ news, but for now this remains more of a concept.
Thanks for making it to the end of this article! It's a long one for sure, but this project has taken months too, so its fitting. I hope you found this interesting, or learned something new. The world of fractals is a fascinating one, and the parallels to nature and the world around us are endless, but it still remains unexplored. There is still more to be discovered, and more to be explored!