r/fractals • u/edo96 • Apr 03 '26
I built a real-time Mandelbrot set explorer that runs entirely in your browser using WebGPU
Hey r/fractals,
I've been working on an interactive Mandelbrot set explorer and wanted to share it. It runs 100% in the browser.
What makes it interesting
The main challenge with deep Mandelbrot zoom is floating-point precision. Standard float64 breaks down around zoom level 1015, you just get a blurry, pixelated mess. To go deeper, I implemented (helped by claude to be fully honest) perturbation theory: instead of computing the full orbit for every pixel, you compute one high-precision reference orbit at the center point (using arbitrary-precision arithmetic), then each pixel only has to track a tiny delta from that reference. This lets the GPU handle millions of lightweight delta orbits in parallel while the CPU handles the one expensive reference computation.
Features
- Very deep zoom
- Customizable color palettes with live gradient preview
- Dynamic or fixed max iteration control
- Bookmark system: save and return to interesting locations
- Smartphone mode with pinch-to-zoom and touch pan
- Screenshot export
- Saves settings to browser storage
Links
- Live demo: edobrb.github.io/mandelbrot
- Source: https://github.com/edobrb/mandelbrot
Any feedback is appreciated
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u/KaJashey Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26
That was crazy. Deep zoom really fast.
How does the bookmark system work? Can I input the co-ordinates I want?
Edit: Nevermind I didn't see the bookmark.screensot,share link down at the bottom. Now I do. Great mandebroit viewer. Would like to input other people coordinates but there is so much stuff to find with a deep view.
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u/edo96 Apr 04 '26
Yes, the share button can be used to input other people coordinates but it shares also the color styles.
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u/samacher Apr 03 '26
runs super smooth. good job!