West Mini-Mandelbulb

Three views of exactly the same object. I didn't know which one I liked most, so I upload all three. I like to think of this as solid proof that the Mandelbulb set is the holy grail of 3d fractals, and is every much as detailed as its traditional 2D counterpart.

One must be extremely careful when traversing the treacherous perils of the Mandelbulb, as if even a single infinitely sharp filament pierces the delicate observer bubble, it spells instant doom for the explorer

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Comments appreciated!

You can skip over the remaining technical details if you wish.

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Top image was rendered using Maxter threshold @50 iterations. The golden nugget-like solid objects you see are the satellite Mandelbulbs which are contained within the set. Rendered at 2400x1600. Fastest of the three.

Middle image was rendered using Analytic Distance Estimation (DE). Here, you can see the spikey dentrites protruding out from the minibulb. This was the costliest render by far, rendered at 4800x3200 and scaled down 2x due to extreme aliasing artifacts. 19 hours total render time on my Core Duo 2.0Ghz laptop.

The third image on the bottom was rendered using the polynomic Mandelbulb equation, as it is about twice as fast as the trigonometric equation (using FPU) and yields identical results. I really like the way it showcases the planar regions which extend out from the dendrites. Problem is the folding planes mask the shape of the underlying object. Rendered at 2400x1600.

When we view 2D images of the classic Mandelbrot set, we can see every little intricate detail encoded within the color bands. Withing the set, there exist many point (0D), line (1D), plane (2D), and solid (3D) features. The 3D Mandelbulb set has every much as bit of detail as it's 2D analog if not more so, yet we cannot view all 3 dimensions together at the same time. Because we view 3D objects in perspective, features closer to the observer mask many intricate details hidden from view, and must be peeled away, much like the many layers inside an union.
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Comments appreciated!