ManpWIN is a Windows fractal exploration and rendering application featuring advanced Mandelbrot and related fractal techniques including perturbation theory, optional Bilinear Approximation (BLA) acceleration, high-precision arithmetic, slope rendering, and a multithreaded formula parser.
The project combines decades of fractal development with a modern CMake-based build system, providing a powerful platform for both visual exploration and mathematical research into deep-zoom fractals and experimental formulae.
This repository contains a fully reproducible CMake-based build system supporting consistent Debug and Release builds with Visual Studio 2022.
ManpWIN 4.05 is a major perturbation, slope-rendering, and parameter architecture update focused on improving rendering consistency, fractal interoperability, colouring behaviour, and long-term maintainability.
- Unified ordinary filtering behaviour across pixel, perturbation, and derivative slope rendering
- Added filter and biomorph support to derivative slope rendering while retaining slope lighting
- Fixed several forward-difference slope rendering issues, including subtype 13 calculations, special-colour indexing, and pixel-state handling
- Corrected palette start, offset, and shift handling, and added configurable pre-palette colouring for iterations below the selected Start Palette value
- Expanded and reorganised perturbation and slope parameter handling, including updated dialogue boxes, parameter animation, and parameter-file save/load support
- Improved conversion between equivalent pixel and perturbation fractals, including Polynomial fractals
- Extended Perturbation Polynomial support to eighth-order polynomials
- Fixed a long-standing perturbation power distortion caused by reference orbits being generated before the correct fractal degree was established
- General rendering, stability, and internal architecture improvements
- Mandelbrot and related fractals
- Extreme deep-zoom rendering using perturbation theory, with optional Bilinear Approximation (BLA) acceleration for improved performance
- Multithreaded rendering engine
- Multithreaded formula parser
- Slope derivative rendering modes
- Fractint palette support
- PNG export
- Advanced plotting modes
- Hypercomplex fractal support
- High-precision arithmetic (MPFR, double-double, quad-double)
- Template-based parser and arithmetic framework supporting unified fractal semantics
- Preservation of legacy algorithms with modern execution architecture
- True colour rendering
- Support for many fractal types including Mandelbrot, Julia, Burning Ship, and more
ManpWIN is designed for both visual exploration and mathematical experimentation:
- Deep zoom Mandelbrot and fractal structure analysis
- Perturbation-based extreme scale rendering
- Investigation of orbit behaviour and numerical stability
- Custom formula experimentation via VM-based parser
- Educational demonstrations of fractal dynamics
👉 Download animation file (WEBM, ~5 MB)
ManpWIN has reached a stable and reproducible build state with a fully functional multithreaded rendering pipeline.
- ✔ Deterministic rendering across Mandelbrot, perturbation, and formula modes
- ✔ Stable multithreaded execution (worklist + parser)
- ✔ Verified Debug and Release builds via CMake + Visual Studio 2022
- ✔ Verified extreme deep zoom rendering using perturbation theory and high-precision arithmetic
- ✔ Ongoing collaboration and interest from the mathematical community
- ✔ Improved numerical stability across multiple arithmetic types (MPFR, DD, QD)
- Windows 10/11
- Visual Studio 2022 (with C++ tools)
- CMake ≥ 3.23
- vcpkg installed at:
C:\vcpkg
git clone https://github.com/PaulTheLionHeart/manpwin.git cd manpwin
cmake -B build -S . ^ -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=C:/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake ^ -DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET=x64-windows-static
The x64-windows-static triplet is recommended because it produces a self-contained executable without requiring MPFR or other third-party runtime DLLs.
Release: cmake --build build --config Release
Debug: cmake --build build --config Debug
Release: build\Release\ManpWIN64.exe
Debug: build\Debug\ManpWIN64.exe
build_release.bat build_debug.bat
ManpWIN/
├─ ManpWIN64/ # Main application sources
├─ parser/ # Formula parser engine
├─ pnglib/ # PNG implementation
├─ ZLib/ # Compression support
├─ qdlib/ # Quad-double arithmetic
├─ MPEG/ # MPEG support
├─ CMakeLists.txt # Root build configuration
- MPFR
- GMP
- libpng
- zlib
Missing pnglib.lib: Reconfigure CMake and ensure pnglib builds as STATIC.
MPFR / GMP errors: Ensure vcpkg is installed and toolchain is set.
Blank screen: Ensure .rc files are included.
Debug vs Release mismatch: Check runtime library consistency.
A chronological record of major battles during the ManpWIN modernisation.
- 🐲 Repository archaeology — removed legacy and duplicate source files
- ⚔️ CMake resurrection — rebuilt modular build architecture
- 🧱 pnglib integration — fixed missing target + linker language issues
- 🔗 MPFR linking battle — resolved dependency integration via vcpkg
- 🪟 Resource restoration — fixed blank screen by restoring
.rccompilation - 🧠 Parser evolution — multithreaded formula parser stabilised
- 🎯 Plotting expansion — new slope rendering + plotting modes added
- 🐛 Debug infinite loop hunt — tracked worklist spin behaviour
- 🎨 Palette parser fix — vector migration introduced subtle indexing bug
- 🧩 Solid guessing initialization bug — uninitialised variable causing lock
- ⚙️ CRT conflict resolution —
/NODEFAULTLIB:LIBCMTDinvestigation - 🏰 First stable reproducible CMake build — Debug + Release verified
- 🏷 Milestone tagged — historic stabilisation snapshot captured
- 🧭 Stability phase reached — deterministic behaviour restored
- 🔬 Research interest — project now attracting mathematical exploration
- 🐉 Perturbation dragon — fixed uninitialised power causing incorrect rendering after toggling
- 🧮 Arithmetic stabilisation — improved trig behaviour across DD/QD/MPFR
- 🧱 Template foundation — introduced templated framework for future fractal expansion
- 🧠 Semantic unification — parser/trig arithmetic consolidated via templates
- 🐉 Layer discipline restored — VM, dispatch, and semantic layers separated cleanly
- 🔮 Transcendental perturbation groundwork — infrastructure prepared for future symbolic perturbation research
- 📊 Status Information modernisation — improved progress reporting and diagnostics
- 🧵 Thread progress overhaul — status reporting now reflects the slowest active worker thread
- 📚 Documentation refresh — Status Information help page and keyboard documentation updated
- 🧭 Deep zoom expedition — tracked and eliminated long-standing perturbation teleporting
- 🛰 Reference orbit refinement — improved perturbation reference generation and rebasing
- 🧩 Hidden missing
else— restored correct rebasing when BLA is disabled - 🌊 KFR smoothing restored — preserved smoothing values when reading and writing
.KFRfiles - 📋 Metadata consistency — parameter dialogues now correctly rebuild fractal metadata across all new fractal families
- 🧮 DD/QD trig repair — fixed transcendental arithmetic issues affecting Tierazon fractals
- 🧊 3D rendering restored — corrected effective thread handling in pixel and perturbation modes
- 🧵 Thread lifecycle cleanup — removed completion races and simplified worker startup/shutdown handling
- 🐉 CPixel audit — verified strip ownership, symmetry, worklists, arithmetic initialisation, and rendering lifecycle
- 🎨 Filter unification — shared ordinary filter behaviour across pixel, perturbation, and derivative slope rendering
- 💡 Slope lighting preserved — filters and biomorphs now work with derivative slope without replacing slope illumination
- 🎨 Palette cleanup — corrected palette start, offset, and shift handling and added configurable pre-palette colouring
- 🔄 Fractal interoperability — improved conversion between equivalent pixel and perturbation fractals
- 🧮 Polynomial expansion — Perturbation Polynomial extended to eighth order
- 🐉 Power distortion slain — fixed long-standing reference-orbit distortion caused by fractal degree being established too late
- 🧩 Parameter architecture — expanded perturbation and slope parameters, updated dialogue and animation handling, and simplified parameter-file persistence
- Never commit build directory
- Tag stable milestones
- Keep Debug and Release working
- Prefer incremental commits
First stable reproducible CMake build achieved.
A key goal of the modernisation effort is reproducibility:
- Clean CMake-based builds
- Controlled dependency handling via vcpkg
- Verified Debug and Release parity
- Deterministic rendering across runs (within current numerical limits)
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