Mandelbulb 3D is a free software application created for 3D fractal imaging. Developed by Jesse and a group of Fractal Forums contributors, based on Daniel White and Paul Nylander’s Mandelbulb work, MB3D formulates dozens of nonlinear equations into an amazing range of fractal objects. The 3D rendering environment includes lighting, color, specularity, depth-of-field, shadow- and glow- effects; allowing the user fine control over the imaging effects.
After several years of dormancy, Andreas Maschke has begun updating Mandelbulb3D and releasing new versions. Andreas is the software developer behind the popular flame fractal program JWildfire.
MB3D has a devoted following of users worldwide, with on-line communities on Deviant Art and Facebook, where artists share their creations, as well as fractal formulas and software tips. The software is more user-friendly than most 3D fractal applications, and a number of tutorials are available on line. It is designed for a Windows environment. To use Mandelbulb 3D in a Mac environment, you will need to use a Windows emulator such as Wine (free) or Parallels (purchase)
Download Mandelbulb3D V1.99.33 (Windows) here current as of 4/2020 – Developed by Andreas Maschke
- All recent versions of Mandelbulb3D released by Andreas Maschke as well as features, news, and support can be found here.
Legacy versions:
Mandelbulb 3D version 1.9.1 (Windows) here originally posted 3/2016
Mandelbulb 3D version 1.8.9 (Windows) here originally posted 5/2014
Comments 21
I need to to thank you for this good read!!
I certainly enjoyed every little bit of it.
I’ve got you book-marked to check out new things you post…
I downloaded mb3d on my PC windows 7 laptop and the program runs very slow. What are the requirements for this program.
I have 2gb of dram, if I upgrade to 4GB will the program run faster?
I have run the program on a variety of older machines with far less memory! Of course everything runs better and faster with more memory, this program does not have a minimum memory requirement! A few things you can do to speed things up a bit is on the “Internal” tab, set the threadcount to 2 and check Auto detect at start! Set your iterations to a lower number. under 200 and don’t run other memory hungry programs like games at the same time!
Thanks for making this software freely available. The quality is superb. You guys are awesome (I cannot emphasize it enough).
We are not the creators of Mandelbulb 3D! Jesse from FractalForums.com created and maintains the software!
Hi, I’ve tried to install the Mac version Madelburb 3D on my Mac (Mac OS 10.8.5), but the program does not launch.
Are there any Mac users that have succeeded in installing Madelburb? Or does anybody have an advice to give on how to install it properly?
Thank you very much.
Merlin.
Merlin here is a link to a Mac Version that should work for you without any issues!
https://www.facebook.com/notes/mandelbulb-maniacs/mandelbulb-1891-for-mac-os-x/600310490063526
Not so much. It acts like it’s opening but doesn’t. Maybe it’s because my system is old. I see no system requirements anywhere.
Wow… thank you very much.
Hello! What a wonderful product and project! I am so grateful to you for making this amazing project available to us all!
Alas, I cannot save or render, but I can save snapshots. I continually get an error : (mac)
access violation at address 429CD92 in module ‘comdlg32.dll
I hope I am in the right place to post this issue!
But seriously, amazing, stellar and compelling work. I am using this to create textures for my 3D objects and no other application has the power of Mandelbulb!
Are you ever going to build the logic to make this work with GPU’s, too?
I know GPU’s are low latency … but I see no latency, here.
No linux love? :'(
Excellent and amazing software, especially on a faster machine.
Here are some discoveries by me. Unfortunately I lost the parameters. http://www.pinterest.com/E10nne/mandelbulb3d-fractals/
Does this software make use of OpenGL or CUDA based gpu rendering ?
Many Thanks
Looking to generate a looped stereo 3d mandelbulb video to be used as wallpaper for an Oculus Rift app.
The video will be mapped to the skybox/enviroment cube as simultaneous texture for each interior cube wall.
Here is the problem: how can I ensure that the edges of the video tessellate symmetrically? I would like the overall experience to be “inside” a seamless looping mandelbulb.
Not even sure what kind of maths I would employ. Intuitively, this is probably very easy to do with your software, but how?
Ah. Found the parameter presets that do exactly this “box” render.
You guys are awesome.
Nice, it even works perfectly on Linux using Wine. Thanks for that.
I can’t get the OS X version working with the latest OS X version (yosemite 10.10.2). It just won’t start. Can anyone help?
None of the Mac versions work on Yosemite. Any ideas?
Sorted out the problem on my MacBook Pro: It had to do with my graphics cards (it has two chips, one for energy saving and one for using games or 3d-tools. Once I’ve disabled the dynamic switching between the both graphic-chips and rebooted, I’ve managed to get it running.
On my retina Imac it works out of the box under yosemite.