Mandelbulber v2 2.17

Main change in version 2.17 is added support for multiple GPUs. Now there is possible parallel computation of fractals on all available OpenCL devices within selected OpenCL platform.

New in 2.17:

• Added new fractal formulas
  josKleinianV2
  mandelbulbAtan2Power2
  bristorbrot2
  mandeltorus
  mandelbulbEye
  transfBoxWrap4d
  transfSphericalInvV2 BETA
  added sphere inversion to PseudoKleinian and Jos Kleinian
  fixed scale in transfAbsAddConditional 3d & 4d
  fixed type2 fold in amazingSurfMod2
• OpenCL: Added support for multi-GPU rendering
• OpenCL: Rendering by GPUs moved to separate thread. Image processing and refreshing doesn't slow down rendering and GPUs can be utilized to 100%
• OpenCL: Added reservation of GPU time for the system
• OpenCL: Improved quality of volumetric effects in OpenCL mode (when the distance from camera varies greatly)
• OpenCL: improved error handling
• OpenCL: Thumbnails in PreviewFileDialog are now rendered using OpenCL (or using CPU if distance to fractal is less than 1e-5)
• Fractals: Corrected rendering of fractal cross-sections
• Fractals:
• Fixed problem with Pseudo Kleinian fractal which don't use maxiter and interior mode
• Shaders: Added new properties for material color:
  luminosity color the same as object color
  color of reflections
  color of reflections the same as object color
  color of transparency
  color of transparency the same as object color
• Shaders: Added roughness property to materials
• Shaders: Fixed variation in brightness between different image resolutions when "connect detail level with image resolution" was enabled.
• Shaders: Fixed bug causing wrong appearance of specular highlights when diffusionTextureIntensity was low and texture mapping was disabled.
• Shaders: Fixed bug: glow was not calculated on CPU with interior mode
• Shaders: There was missing updating input.delta in volumetric shader (CPU code) - issue #614
• Shaders: Fixed bug #618. Max distance for SSAO was limited to 100.0
• Shaders: Fixed bug in AmbientOcclusion shader (wrong appearance when maxiter reached)
• Shaders: Corrected code for non-DE shading mode to not use distance estimationat all.
• UI: Added displaying of last rendered tiles with noise statistics when MC is used.
• UI: Fixed not working Reset (local reset) buttons
• UI: Local Load/Save buttons now do not load/save animation data (caused problems with loading partial settings)
• UI: Corrected tooltips in Load/Save/Reset buttons
• UI: Refreshing of thumbnails can occupy not more threads than total number of CPU cores
• UI: Reduced minimum width of navigation dock
• UI: Substituted load/save/reset buttons with smaller icon buttons
• UI: Fixed bug #602 - mouse dragging sometimes continued when mouse buttons were released
• Queue: Fixed problem with locking rendering engine by updating of Queue thumbnails
• Files: Added option to save each image channel in a separate directory
• CLI: Added --gpuall (-G) CLI option to use all available GPU devices

Mandelbulber v2 2.16

New in v2.16

• Added new fractal formulas
  mandelbulbAbsPower2
  mandelbulbPow2V2
  riemannSphereMsltoeV2
  aboxSurfBox
  boxFoldBulbMenger
  vicsek
  transfSurfBoxFoldV2
  transfSurfBoxFoldV24d
• UI: Added rotation of the camera by mouse dragging (left mouse button)
• UI: Added rotation of the camera around indicated point by mouse dragging (right mouse button)
• UI: Added roll of the camera by mouse dragging (middle mouse button)
• UI: Added moving of the camera by mouse dragging (left+right mouse buttons)
• UI: Added selective loading and saving of settings. Each dock and tab has own load/save buttons
• UI: Several improvements of popup sliders (added "-" button, corrected handling of negative numbers and zeros)
• OpenCL: fixed problem with loading OpenCL ICD under Windows with newest NVidia drivers (missing OpenCL platforms)
• OpenCL: Preselect 1st GPU device in preferences when open for the first time
• OpenCL: corrected loading of setting for selected OpenCL device
• OpenCL: corrected changing of active GPU device during runtime
• OpenCL: added error handling for missing or wrong selection of GPU device
• OpenCL: added "Job size multiplier" option which can speed up rendering
• OpenCL: Reduced inlining of CalculateFractal and CalculateDistance. Calculation of fractals with DeltaDE is about twice faster. Compilation of OpenCL kernels with DeltaDE is also much faster.
• File: Implemented optional specular image channel and saving in separate image file
• UI: fixed bug: Corrected error messages which could cause program crashes
• UI: added context menu for all comboBoxes
• Shaders: Volumetric light from maim light source was visible when this light was disabled
• Compilation: win32 platform is no longer supported

Mandelbulber v2 2.15

New in 2.15

• Added new fractal formulas
  aboxModKaliV3
  scatorPower2Real
  scatorPower2
  scatorPower2StdR
  transfSinOrCos
  transfSinAndCos
  transfSinAndCosMax
  transfBlockify BETA
  transfAddCpixelScator
  transfAddCpixelSinOrCos
• OpenCL: implemented texture mapping for color
• OpenCL: implemented texture mapping for luminosity
• OpenCL: implemented texture mapping for diffusion
• OpenCL: implemented normal maps
• OpenCL: Implemented normal maps based on greyscale bump maps
• OpenCL: Implemented displacement maps (also 16-bit depth)
• OpenCL: added bicubic interpolation for textures
• OpenCL: added Fractalize Texture effect.
• OpenCL: implemented GPU accelerated mesh export.
• OpenCL: implemented GPU accelerated voxel export.
• OpenCL: added suggestion for memory limit in OpenCL tab. Information is based on CL_DEVICE_MAX_MEM_ALLOC_SIZE
• OpenCL: fixed bug in background shader. Background brightness parameter was not used
• OpenCL: eliminated differences in shadow calculation between CPU ond OpenCL code. There was a difference in brightness when detailLevel <> 1.0
• OpenCL: optimized compilation of OpenCL programs when textures or primitives are used. It can increase available OpenCL max workgroup size
• OpenCL: Changed default OpenCL mode to "full"
• OpenCL: fixed bug: There was difference in background brightness OpenCL versus CPU
• Fractals: improved color compatibility between c++ and openCL
• Fractals: restructured analytic functions to provide flexibility in Hybrid Mode.
• Fractals: improved calculation of mixed type hybrid fractals. Rendering is much faster and better quality. Now there is used analytic distance estimation if all used formulas have analytic DE functions.
• Fractals: fixed bug in repeat function used in boolean mode
• Shaders: added Monte Carlo Global Illumination effect
• Shaders: added Monte Carlo Chromatic Aberration effect for camera lenses and transparent objects
• Shaders: added Monte Carlo soft shadows
• Shaders: added Monte Carlo anti-aliasing (enabled when Monte Carlo effects are used)
• Shaders: optimized noise estimation for MC algorithms. Noise is not overestimated in very bright spots
• Shaders: added option to have all random lights in one color
• Shaders: added maxIterationTrim parameter for iter fog
• Shaders: added option to disable shadows for iter fog
• Shaders: added option to change distance of volumetric fog from fractal surface
• Shaders: implemented improved specullar reflections which allows to rendered metallic surfaces covered with lacquer
• Shaders: corrected texture mapping in Global Illumination algorithm
• Shaders: optimized rendering of random lights (about 10 times faster)
• Shaders: fixed bug: Program crashed when post effects were updated just after image size change
• Shaders: fixed bug: main light source was visible when was disabled
• UI: added loading of textures directly from Internet (by providing URL instead of local file path)
• UI: corrected FileSelectWidget to show textures loaded from Internet
• UI: corrected refreshing of PreviewFileDialog (button Add to presets was visible only after preview was rendered)
• UI: increased initial progressiveSteps for faster previews
• UI: fixed issue of pressing "M"-button causing alert dialog loop
• UI: changed Generate button in preferences dialog to recreate cache for all examples files and all files from settings folder.
• UI: reduced quality of MC effects in thumbnails to speed up rendering of previews
• UI: fixed bug: program hanged when light was placed behind floor object
• UI: fixed bug: program hanged when 'render' was clicked while random lights were being placed.
• UI: fixed bug: program crashed when non-existing material was assigned to any object
• UI: fixed problems with loading textures from https pages
• UI: cleaned up MC effects - possible to enable without DOF
• Image: corrected interpolation of image preview - shifted by half of pixel
• Settings: save image_proportion to fract-settings file
• Mesh export: corrected calculation of limits in Mesh Export. The object had holes on the sides (on cutting planes). It caused problems with slicing on 3D printing software.
• Mesh export: Fixed problems with saving extremely big meshes
• Files: Corrected saving of EXR images (was used 16-bit buffer instead of floating point)
• Compilation: program checked and cleaned up with clang-tidy
• Compilation: Used QScopedPointer and QSharedPointer in many classes
• fixed compile problems on older qt versions

Mandelbulber v2 2.15-alpha3

• added texture mapping in OpenCL mode
• added chromatic aberration effect
• reduced differences between OpenCL and CPU rendering results
• fixed a lot of bugs

Mandelbulber v2 2.15-alpha2

This is second alpha release of Mandelbulber 2.15.
In this pre-release there is new Monte Carlo Global Illumination effect.

Mandelbulber v2 2.15-alpha1

This is first alpha release of Mandelbulber 2.15. It is not completed release, but already has new interesting features like:

• OpenCL support for mesh export and voxel export
• improvements for volumetric fog and iter fog
• improved calculation of estimated distance for hybrid fractals (about 3 times faster rendering)
• some new fractal formulas

Mandelbulber v2 2.14

New in Mandelbulber 2.14

• Added new fractal formulas:
  mandelboxVariable
  boxFold4dBulbPow2
  aboxModKaliV2
  transfPolyFoldSym
  transfPolyFoldSymMulti

• Fractals:
  transfOctoFold & transfMengerFold, now work with analytic logarithmic DE
  imaginaryScatorPower2 fixed r calc
  benesiT1PineTree & benesiPwr2Mandelbulb. Added 2nd rotation (for animation)
  amazingSurfMod2 fixed comboBox

• OpenCL: implemented primitive objects

• OpenCL: implemented Boolean operators for fractal formulas

• OpenCL: implemented multiple materials

• OpenCL: implemented background texture mapping

• OpenCL: improved quality of DeltaDE algorithm in OpenCL kernel

• OpenCL: added option for fast_relaxed_math (speed up rendering by 20-50%)

• OpenCL: optimized image refreshing (improved GPU utilization)

• OpenCL: "limited" engine renamed to "medium"

• OpenCL: "medium" engine don't render volumetric effects (to be much faster than "full")

• OpenCL: Changed max estimated distance to 5.0 (was 1.0). It caused wrong rendering of background

• Shaders: Corrected SSAO random mode. It couldn't work properly with precomputed sin/cos

• Shaders: Now there is possible to use soft shadows when limits are enabled

• UI: enhanced controls for limits (bounding box) definition

• UI: corrected number of decimal places in fractal UIs

• UI: key presses regarding navigation will fire every 300ms while pressed to enable continuous movement

• UI: multiple keys can be pressed at the same time

• UI: increased max value of audio_trak_collection parameter additionFactor to 65535

• UI: optimized refreshing of image preview (used simple scaling during rendering)

• UI: New navigation mode which uses ctrl + mouse wheel

• UI: changed keyboard layout to more comfortable (more like in 3D games)

• UI: added HotKeys Cheatsheet

• UI: Added hotkeys for keyframe handling

• UI: fixed bug: slider popup window appeared in wrong place when dock was detached

• UI: renamed "Preferred" to "Automatic" in selection for distance estimation method

• UI: fixed bug: it was not possible to load toolbar presets when they were being refreshed at application startup

• UI: Added autoResize to NetRender table. It was much to wide.

• UI: Mouse wheel now only zooms, when ctrl is pressed otherwise the mouse wheel event only scrolls the render window

• UI: Fixed problem with missing qGamePad slot

• UI: Eliminated annoying flickering of UI when settings without animation was loaded

• Animation: implemented animated textures

• Animation: Fixed bug: use of mouse click or mouse click caused crashes when animation was rendered or recorded flight path

• Examples: updated standard preset settings

• CLI: queue now shows a waiting spinner, while waiting for something to do

• CLI: linux and MacOS now detect if output is a terminal or a file. When it is a file, the output is plane text without ANSI escape codes

• Compilation: configured CircleCL to create MacOS builds

Mandelbulber v2 2.13-2

New in 2.13-2:

• fixed bug: using mouse wheel on spinbox with dial could cause program crash

Mandelbulber v2 2.13-1

New in 2.13-1

• Mesh Export: Fixed bug: Mesh Export didn't provide cMaterial data. It caused crash when fractal color was calculated
• OpenCL: Fixed bug: SSAO used double precision constants and variables

Mandelbulber v2 2.13

What is new in Mandelbulber 2.13:

• Added new fractal formulas:
  • Amazing Surf - Mod2
  • Transf Add Constant Mod1
  • Transf Add Cpixel Rotated
• Fractals: renamed all fabs() to abs() in all formula UI
• Fractals: cleaned up all fractal formula UIs
• UI: Added pop-up sliders for all edit fields
• UI: Added buttons (x2, /2, round, R, 0) attached to pup-up sliders
• UI: Removed existing sliders from UI
• UI: Cleaned up all UIs to reduce width of widgets and frames
• UI: GroupBoxes are colored
• UI: Added 3D compass in image window
• UI: Corrected calculation of 'max' in statistics window
• UI: Added editable presets for image resolution
• UI: Optimize DE multiplier now doesn't use OpenCL, so works properly when OpenCL is enabled.
• UI: Added button to calculate constant distance threshold
• Image: Added saturation control for rendered image
• Shaders: Value of background brightness controls also gradient of background
• Shaders: Added option for 1-color background
• Shaders: Fixed bug in IterFog shader for auxLights. Intensity of effect was wrongly multiplied by 100
• Shaders: Added parameter iterFogBrightnessBoost to keep compatibility with version <= 2.12
• Shaders: Corrected algorithm for calculation of shadows opacity in IterFog mode. Now the algorithm is the same as opacity calculation in volumetric shader.
• Shaders: Added option for metallic surface in material definition. It makes specular highlight in the same color as surface color.
• Shaders: Added iridescence effect
• Shaders: Fixed problem with different brightness of left and right image in stereoscopic mode. There was wrong calculation of perspective in SSAO algorithm
• Shaders: Implemented texture mapping based on orbit traps ('Fractalize texture' option). Not implemented in OpenCL yet.
• Shaders: Added 4D orbit trap color (BETA)
• Shaders: Added Color By Numbers (BETA)
• Primitives: Added option for water shape depending on another objects
• Primitives: Added button to align primitive object rotation angle to actual camera rotation angle.
• Animation: Added displaying of camera, target and lights paths in image window
• Animation: Added information about actual camera distance to selected keyframe. It is displayed in Animation dock.
• Settings: Fixed problem with loading animation where is used parameter fractal0_mandelbox_color_R
• Settings: Added reverse compatibility for mandelbulber.ini. Now older version can be run without damaging application settings.
• Files: fixed double dot in output filename. Filenames with no file extension were expanded to have two dots before the suffix
• Files: Corrected image file extensions generated by render queue
• OpenCL: fixed problem with rendering fractals with more than 250 iterations
• OpenCL: Added option to disable OpenCL compile cache (used by NVidia driver)
• OpenCL: SSAO uses precomputed (co)sine buffer - faster rendering
• OpenCL: Implemented option for random SSAO
• OpenCL: Fixed bug in IterFog shader. It didn't work properly with increased detail level or decreased DE factor
• Performance: Disabled OpenMP for updating image preview. It sometimes caused long lags at program startup or during rescaling of main window. It happened mostly when system was already loaded by another computing application.
• Performance: Fixed bug causing casual freezes of image refresh and progress bar. There was direct call of cRenderedImage->update() method which is not thread safe.
• Performance: Added bad_alloc handling to mesh export
• Performance: Fixed many issues showed by Coverity Scan
• Examples: Standardize image resolution for all examples (fullHD or 1600x1200)
• Examples: Added several example settings
• Compilation: Generalized code for OpenCL engines
• Compilation: win64 version updated to use Qt 5.9.4