Mandelbulb

The definition is pretty simple. Most of it's complexity is to subdivide the mesh into several pieces so that my laptop doesn't end up running out of memory:

The first VB component is a timer, the last one bakes each mesh chunk into the document, the middle one calculates the isosurface values and has the following code:


Private Sub RunScript(ByVal x As List(Of Vector3d), ByVal y As Object, ByRef A As Object)
Dim nums As New list(Of Double)
For Each v As point3d In x
nums.add(mandelbulb(v))
Next
a = nums
End Sub
' custom additional code
Dim z As vector3d
Dim Iterations As Integer = 6
Dim Power As Integer = 8
Function mandelbulb(pos As vector3d) As Double
z = pos
Dim dr As Double = 1.0
Dim r As Double = 0.0
Dim int As Integer = 0
For i As Integer = 0 To iterations - 1r = z.Length
Dim theta As Double = Math.acos(z.Z / r)
Dim phi As Double = Math.atan2(z.Y, z.X)
dr = Math.pow(r, Power - 1.0) * Power * dr + 1.0
Dim zr As Double = Math.pow(r, Power)
theta = theta * Power
phi = phi * Power
Dim sintheta As Double = Math.sin(theta)
z.X = sintheta * Math.cos(phi)
z.Y = Math.sin(phi) * sintheta
z.Z = Math.cos(theta)
z = vector3d.Multiply(z, zr)
z = vector3d.Add(z, pos)
If r > 1.5 Then Exit For
Next
Return 0.5 * Math.log(r) * r / dr
End Function


I mainly got it from here: https://github.com/royvanrijn/mandelbulb.js, but I've seen almost the same code on several places.