Mandelbrot Set Generator for CUDA

This is a simple demonstration of NVIDIA CUDA for GPU compute. This program generates an image of a Mandelbrot set, where both axes span the interval [-2,2]. There are configurable constants in the source.

Building

Run the provided script build.sh. Ensure the latest CUDA toolchain including nvcc is installed. You will also need to install the Git submodule for libbmp.

Using

On any NVIDIA GPU-equipped system, run the resulting a.out program. It will generate a bitmap file test.bmp containing the Mandelbrot set image. Note that some glitches may occur at sufficiently high resolutions, and some programs may be unable to read such large bitmap files.

Configuring

The following constants are configurable in the main source mand.cu:

• NUM_ITER controls the number of iterations used for the convergence/divergence check.
• GRID_RES controls the grid resolution and increments. For example, if the resolution is 0.01, then moving one pixel to the right means moving 0.01 grid units to the right.
• Do NOT touch GRID_DIM as it is simply a re-expression of GRID_RES.