The Mandelbrot fractal studio for Mac. Built for deep zoom.
MandelKit is a native fractal explorer and generator for Mac, iPhone and iPad. On Apple Silicon, macOS runs its arm64 code directly while Metal provides responsive rendering, precise deep zoom, independent interior and exterior color, illuminated 3D relief, complete saved regions and very large exports.
Version 1.1 · €2.99 in the German App Store · one-time purchase
MandelKit at a glance
- Devices
- Mac · iPhone · iPadarm64 execution without Rosetta on Apple Silicon and adapted interfaces across three Apple platforms.
- Renderer
- Apple MetalGPU rendering with progressive refinement during interaction.
- Deep zoom
- Arbitrary precisionReference-orbit deep zoom for Mandelbrot and Julia; precision is formula-specific.
- Formulas
- 7 familiesMandelbrot, Julia, Burning Ship, Multibrot, Multijulia, Multicorn and Magnet I.
- Image export
- PNG · JPEG · TIFFCurrent composition, aspect ratio, color and effects are preserved.
- Largest export
- 100,000 × 100,000Disk-backed, tiled 2D export on Mac.
Built for Apple Silicon. GPU rendering with Metal.
On Apple Silicon, macOS runs MandelKit’s arm64 code directly. Its SwiftUI interface and Metal GPU pipeline are part of the Mac app itself; fractal rendering does not run inside a browser.
Metal evaluates large groups of fractal pixels in parallel. Deep zoom still moves high-precision reference-orbit work onto the appropriate numerical path—the GPU does not remove the cost of precision. Progressive passes keep navigation responsive and then refine the finished view.
- arm64 execution without Rosetta on Apple Silicon
- Apple Metal compute pipeline for fractal fields, color and lighting
- One stored scene model across Mac, iPhone and iPad
Travel beyond ordinary floating-point precision.
At modest zoom levels, direct GPU iteration is both fast and precise. Farther in, neighboring pixels become too close for ordinary floating-point coordinates to distinguish. MandelKit then changes numerical strategy instead of enlarging a blurred approximation.
For Mandelbrot and Julia deep zoom, a high-precision reference orbit anchors the calculation while perturbation evaluates nearby pixels efficiently. Mandelbrot can additionally use bilinear approximation to skip safe orbit blocks. Progressive passes keep the view responsive and replace intermediate detail with the finished screen resolution.
- Mandelbrot: deep zoom with perturbation and BLA
- Julia: deep zoom with perturbation
- Burning Ship, power families and Magnet I: Standard + Extended precision
Color is a rendering system, not a final filter.
MandelKit keeps the fractal calculation separate from its visual interpretation. Exterior and interior can use independent color sources; gradients can remain cyclic while they are changed; and effects such as contours, field lines, distance bands, interference, orbit traps, textures and edge treatment build on stored numerical channels.
That separation makes a region reproducible. A saved or shared region records more than a screenshot: it preserves the coordinates, formula, iterations, color sources, gradients, modifiers, lighting and camera settings needed to recreate the starting point.
- Independent interior and exterior coloring
- Built-in and custom gradients with persistent cyclic state
- 2D effects, textures, shading and coordinated style presets
Turn fractal measurements into illuminated relief.
The 3D mode maps fractal measurements into a height field and shades it with a material and light model. The relief camera moves independently from the fractal position, so composition, height, smoothing, horizon and light direction can be developed without losing the underlying region.
Directional and point lighting, materials and relief controls are available across Mac, iPhone and iPad. The compact iPhone interface keeps the artwork central while the tools open when they are needed; iPad and Mac use the additional space for a broader inspector.
- 2D and illuminated 3D relief from the same scene
- Directional or point light with adjustable material
- Independent relief camera and stored 3D settings
Save the complete place, not only the picture.
A MandelKit region is a portable scene. It contains high-precision coordinates, zoom, formula parameters, visual sources, effects, lighting and the 3D camera. The app renders a matching image-filling preview in the background, even when the live viewport has not yet completed its final refinement.
Regions stay local or can optionally sync in a private iCloud collection. Publishing creates a separate copy only after explicit confirmation. A public copy can appear in the gallery or remain discoverable only by its link, while the private region remains unchanged.
- Local regions and optional private iCloud sync
- Image-filling previews rendered from the saved scene
- Explicit public-gallery or link-only publishing
Render beyond one Metal texture.
A 100,000 × 100,000 image contains ten billion pixels and cannot fit in a single Metal texture or a conventional in-memory image buffer. MandelKit’s Mac exporter divides the visible composition into safe tiles, renders each tile at its exact coordinates and assembles the encoded image through disk-backed storage.
This keeps peak memory bounded and preserves the chosen window aspect ratio across tile boundaries. Giant export is deliberately a Mac-only 2D workflow; its duration and storage demand depend on output size, iterations, antialiasing and active effects.
- Up to 100,000 × 100,000 pixels on Mac
- Disk-backed tiles instead of one oversized texture
- Progress visible in the export panel and macOS app icon
Who MandelKit is built for — and where its limits are
A strong fit for
- Fractal artists who want reproducible color, effects and 3D scenes
- Deep-zoom explorers who need more than ordinary floating-point coordinates
- Teachers and curious readers who want the image, formula and explanation together
- Mac users producing print-scale or archival fractal images
Important boundaries
- MandelKit requires a compatible Mac, iPhone or iPad with Apple Metal; there is no Windows or Android version.
- Precision support varies by formula. Arbitrary-precision perturbation is not claimed for every fractal family.
- The 100,000-pixel disk-backed export is a Mac-only 2D workflow; iPhone and iPad use conventional image export.
- Core exploration and export work offline. iCloud synchronization and website publishing require their respective network services.
Technical facts
- Current App Store release
- 1.1 · released 12 August 2026
- Price
- €2.99 in Germany; regional App Store prices may differ
- Platforms
- macOS 14 or later · iOS/iPadOS 17 or later
- Mac architecture
- Native arm64 on Apple Silicon
- Rendering
- Native SwiftUI interface and Apple Metal GPU pipeline
- Deep-zoom methods
- High-precision reference orbit · perturbation · BLA for Mandelbrot
- Export formats
- PNG · JPEG · TIFF
- Sharing
- Local · optional iCloud · public gallery · link only
- Developer
- Björn Kindler · Kindler Dev · Unterhaching, Germany
Direct answers
Is MandelKit a Mandelbrot app for Mac?
Yes. MandelKit is a native Mac fractal explorer using Apple Metal. It renders Mandelbrot, Julia, Burning Ship, Multibrot, Multijulia, Multicorn and Magnet I, and includes Mac-only disk-backed 2D export up to 100,000 × 100,000 pixels.
Does MandelKit also run on iPhone and iPad?
Yes. The same scene model, core renderer, saved regions, colors, effects and 3D relief are available through interfaces adapted to iPhone and iPad. Giant disk-backed export remains Mac-only.
Can MandelKit zoom beyond normal floating-point precision?
Yes for supported deep-zoom formulas. Mandelbrot uses a high-precision reference orbit, perturbation and optional BLA; Julia uses perturbation. Other formula families currently use Standard + Extended precision.
Can MandelKit export an image larger than Metal’s maximum texture size?
Yes on Mac. The 2D exporter renders safe tiles and assembles them through disk-backed storage, so the final image can reach 100,000 × 100,000 pixels without allocating one texture of that size.
Does a published region expose my private collection?
No. Publishing creates a separate public or link-only copy after explicit confirmation. Your local region and optional private iCloud collection remain unchanged.
Does MandelKit run directly on Apple Silicon?
Yes. The macOS app contains arm64 code and runs without Rosetta translation on Apple Silicon. It uses Metal compute kernels for fractal rendering. Actual speed depends on the Mac model, formula, zoom depth, iteration count, output size and active effects.
Start with a coordinate. Leave with a world.
Download MandelKit once from the App Store, or begin with the public gallery and open a reproducible region in the app.