Just a tiny update to my homebrew mandelbrot browser for Nintendo DS. This version merely adds DLDI-support, meaning you should be able to save screenshots as .PNG from pretty much any flashcart. Check the previous post for screenshots, more info, etc. To the right is an actual image saved from the program.

Download r06 .nds

A quick update to the mandelbrot explorer, this improves speed when you are not zoomed in very far. When you are zoomed below 175x, I will use 32 bit (1.17.14) fixed point numbers, which greatly improves speed. However, if you zoom beyond that, then it switches back to 64 bit (1.35.28), which provides greater precision. I’ve measured, and you can zoom to approx 200,000x before you start getting pixelated due to lack of precision, at which point I switch to floating point (which slows it down a bit), but you can zoom a bit farther then.

Next, I will start looking into optimizations of the algorithm itself. Two things I have heard of, but not really researched, are ‘boundary tracing’ and ‘periodicity checking’

R05 Download: .nds and .ds.gba
Changes since R04: Minor optimizations and quality improvements.

Here’s some more PNGs saved out from my app:

I was inspired to make a fractal explorer for the DS, and what better fractal than the classic Mandelbrot Set! If you don’t know what a Mandelbrot is, or why it’s in a set, check trusty Wikipedia.

This is an initial version, I’m still working on how to best balance speed and quality. This isn’t the fastest it can be, but it’s not the best quality either. You can zoom a ways in, but not as far as I would like. You’ll know when you’ve hit the limit of precision, because edges start getting very rough and strange patterns (stranger than normal mandelbrot, that is).

Features in R04:

• Zoom by dragging a rectangle
• Save screenshot to PNG
• Panning, Zooming, Adjust Iterations by buttons
• 14 different color palettes

Download .nds & .ds.gba