2022
GPU Accelerated Mandelbrot Set Explorer
I built a real-time Mandelbrot set explorer with Unity, C#, and HLSL shader code for GPU-accelerated fractal rendering.
Overview
I built this project from an interest in fractals and mathematics. It was my first hands-on experience programming for the GPU and helped me learn Unity, C#, and shader-based rendering.
Rendering approach
I ran the Mandelbrot calculation in parallel for each pixel, using HLSL to keep the explorer smooth at real-time frame rates. I optimized the core iteration loop and represented complex numbers with two floating-point values.
Limits discovered
When zooming deeply, the visualization became pixelated because my GPU did not support the precision needed for 64-bit floating point calculations. Fixing that would require arbitrary precision arithmetic, which would significantly reduce performance.
Project images
