A native macOS app for generating neon light-painting mandala images. Every parameter is controllable in real time, with instant auto-generation on change.
- Go to the latest release
- Download Mandala-Generator.zip and unzip it
- Move Mandala Generator.app to your Applications folder
- Double-click to open — macOS will block it the first time
- Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway
- Confirm by clicking Open in the dialog
This is required once because the app is not notarised with Apple.
Requires macOS 14 or later.
Find more samples here.
- 33 drawing styles organised into five categories:
- Parametric Curves — Spirograph, Rose Curves, Floral, Butterfly, Epitrochoid, Lissajous, Hypocycloid, Phyllotaxis, Fractal, Superformula, Wave Interference
- Geometric & Pattern — Geometric, Sacred Geometry, Sunburst, Star Burst, String Art, Spider Web, Weave, Radial Mesh, Moiré
- Organic & Flow — Flow Field, Tendril, Voronoi, Strange Attractor (Clifford / De Jong / Bedhead / Hopalong with 30 presets)
- 3D — Hyperboloid (ruled surface), Torus (parametric wireframe), Nautilus Shell (logarithmic spiral), Torus Knot, Sphere Grid, Tesseract
- Special — Universe, Symbols, Mixed
- 3D styles — Hyperboloid, Torus, and Nautilus Shell are rendered as tilted wireframe / spiral projections with depth shading (front faces bright, back faces dim at 8%) and per-symmetry brightness normalisation to prevent centre overexposure at high symmetry counts
- Strange Attractor style — 30 presets across four attractor types; 500 k–1 M iterated points; colour LUT for performance; scale adapts to attractor bounds
- Superformula style — 22 Gielis presets spanning sharp stars through smooth polygons; density-driven stroke weight
- Universe style — density drives a 7-level cosmic progression: single planet → two planets → Saturn with rings → full solar system → Milky Way spiral galaxy → multiple galaxies → cosmic web with filaments and galaxy clusters; fully symmetry-aware
- Symbols style — 20 sacred and universal symbols arranged in mandala rings: Heart, Peace, Infinity, Eye of Providence, Yin-Yang, Crescent, Star of David, Pentagram, Ankh, Om, Chakra Lotus, Flower of Life, Dharma Wheel, Merkaba, Triquetra, Ouroboros, Triskelion, Vesica Piscis, Hamsa, Sri Yantra, Eye of Horus, Star of Ishtar, Caduceus — seed-driven selection with concentric center symbol
- Multi-layer compositing — stack up to 5 independent layers, each with its own style, palette, blend mode, and settings
- Per-layer controls — symmetry, seed, scale, complexity, density, glow, colour drift, ripple, wash, abstract level, saturation, brightness, rotation, opacity, blend mode
- Layer header actions — dice (randomize), duplicate, copy/paste via context menu; drag handle for reordering
- Layer mini-previews — each layer card shows a live thumbnail that updates after every render
- Drag-to-reorder layers — drag handle on each layer card; sticky "Add Layer" button always visible at the top
- Favorites — save any render as a favourite (★ button in the toolbar); browse, apply, and delete favourites from a popover thumbnail grid; favourites persist across sessions
- Copy to clipboard (⌘⇧C) — copies the current image as PNG to the system clipboard; also available in the Edit menu
- Background layer — solid colour (exact RGB, independent of layer blend modes), gradient (radial or linear), pattern (checkerboard, stripes, diagonal, crosshatch), grain, image, or Auto (palette-derived dark ambient gradient)
- Solid colour background — bypasses the filmic tone-map so the displayed colour exactly matches the HSB picker; composited after all layers so Add/Screen blend modes between layers never pollute the background
- Hue colour sliders — background hue controls show a rainbow gradient track so you can see what colour you're picking
- Effects layer — brightness, contrast, vignette, chromatic aberration, 3D relief, dimming, erasure, highlights, star sparkles, wash (bleached/overexposed), sepia (warm antique), fade (matte gray), bloom (multi-scale glow bleed), local contrast (clarity / unsharp mask), grain (film noise), glitter (rainbow iridescent sparkles) — each spatial effect with independent seed dice button
- 18 colour palettes — Aurora, Nebula, Neon City, Sunset, Prism, Bioluminescence, Blue/Red, Synthwave, Lava, Gold, Toxic, and more
- Custom palette editor — create, name, and save your own palettes with a gradient stop editor (HSB sliders per stop); custom palettes are marked with a star and persist across sessions
- Resolution-independent brightness — rendered at any preview or export resolution (512–8192 px), images always match in perceived brightness; the Float32 additive buffer is scaled by
bufferSize / 1600before filmic tone-mapping so line energy density is constant across resolutions - Persistent history — back/forward navigation (⌘[ / ⌘]) through every render, survives app restarts
- Randomize All (⌘⇧R) — generates a completely new random mandala; app starts with a random mandala on first launch
- Save/Load settings — save full parameter state as JSON (⌘S), load it back (⌘O); backward-compatible with older saves
- Export — PNG, JPG, or WebP at 512 / 800 / 1024 / 1400 / 2048 px or a custom size, with square / circle / squircle / rounded output shapes (PNG and WebP support transparency)
- Batch export (⌘⇧E) — render many seed/palette variations in parallel to a folder
- Animated export (⌘⌥E) — export a looping MOV (HEVC) or GIF with rotating layers; configurable frame count, FPS, and format; non-blocking with a live progress bar; background expanded so corners never appear during rotation
- Pan & zoom — scroll to zoom, drag to pan the canvas preview
- Drawing layer — draw symmetrical freehand strokes directly on the canvas; each stroke has its own color (color picker), weight, glow, blend mode, and symmetry
- Graffiti / spray layer — paint soft airbrush strokes below the drawing layer; configurable brush size, opacity, and softness for smooth blended areas
Requires Xcode command-line tools and Swift 5.9+.
swift build -c release
./build_app.sh
open "Mandala Generator.app"WebP export is not guaranteed to be available via macOS system frameworks (ImageIO WebP read support does not necessarily imply WebP write support).
To ensure reliable WebP export, install the cwebp tool via Homebrew:
brew install webpThe app detects WebP export support at runtime and only shows the WebP option when it can actually export WebP (either via ImageIO encoding support when available, or via cwebp). If WebP was previously selected but isn't supported on the current system, it automatically falls back to PNG.
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Generate Randomize All Save Settings Load ← → │ ← toolbar
├────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┤
│ BACKGROUND │ │ LAYERS [ + ] │ ← sticky
│ ┌──────────┐ │ │ ⠿ ○ [img] Name 🎲 ⌄ × │
│ │ Base │ │ Canvas │ ┌───────────────────┐ │
│ │ Layer │ │ (pan + zoom) │ │ style / blend │ │
│ └──────────┘ │ │ │ palette grid │ │
│ EFFECTS │ │ │ sliders… │ │
│ ┌──────────┐ │ │ └───────────────────┘ │
│ │ Effects │ │ │ ⠿ ○ [img] Name 🎲 ⌄ × │
│ └──────────┘ │ │ └───────────────────┘ │
│ EXPORT │ │ │
│ ┌──────────┐ │ │ │
│ │ Size/Fmt │ │ │ │
│ │ Save Img │ │ │ │
│ │ Animate │ │ │ │
│ └──────────┘ │ │ │
└────────────────┴───────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┘
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| ⌘R | Generate / re-render |
| ⌘⇧R | Randomize all |
| ⌘S | Save settings |
| ⌘O | Load settings |
| ⌘⇧S | Save image |
| ⌘⇧C | Copy image to clipboard |
| ⌘⇧E | Batch export |
| ⌘⌥E | Export animation |
| ⌘[ / ⌘] | Navigate history back / forward |
Controls a dedicated background layer rendered before the mandala layers.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Type | Solid colour, gradient, pattern, grain, image, or Auto |
| Color | Exact solid fill — composited after all layers, immune to blend-mode interactions |
| Auto | Derives a dark ambient background from the first layer's palette |
| Primary / Secondary | Hue (colour gradient slider), saturation, brightness |
| Gradient style | Radial or linear (with angle control) |
| Pattern type | Checkerboard, stripes, diagonal, or crosshatch |
| Opacity | Overall background opacity |
Post-processing applied to the final composite. Reset button restores all to defaults.
| Effect | Description |
|---|---|
| Brightness | Global brightness (0.5 = neutral) |
| Contrast | Global contrast (0.5 = neutral) |
| Vignette | Darkens the edges |
| Chromatic | RGB channel separation (chromatic aberration) |
| Relief | 3D emboss depth — hard-light blend of a directional height map |
| Light | Relief light direction (0–360°, shown when Relief > 0) |
| Wash | Bleached / washed-out look — desaturates and pushes colours toward white |
| Sepia | Warm antique sepia tone |
| Fade | Matte finish — fades toward flat neutral gray, reduces saturation and contrast |
| Bloom | Multi-scale soft glow bleed — bright areas melt into surrounding space across four radii |
| Local Contrast | Clarity / unsharp mask — boosts mid-range edge contrast without affecting global brightness |
| Grain | Analogue film grain / noise |
| Dimming | Random dark blotches (multiply blend) |
| Erasure | Burn-through holes in the image |
| Highlights | Additive glowing radial spots |
| Stars | Sharp cross-flare diffraction spike sparkles |
| Glitter | Dense iridescent rainbow sparkles — each a tiny coloured cross-flare; fully seeded |
Each spatially-random effect (Dimming, Erasure, Highlights, Stars, Glitter) has a dice button to reshuffle its position independently.
| Control | Description |
|---|---|
| Size | 512 / 800 / 1024 / 1400 / 2048 px, or Custom (any value 64–8192) |
| Format | PNG, JPG, or WebP (WebP only shown when supported) |
| Shape | Square, Circle, Squircle, or Rounded (PNG/WebP only — uses transparency) |
| Save Image (⌘⇧S) | Save the rendered image |
| Export Animation… (⌘⌥E) | Opens a dialog to choose format (MOV/GIF), frame count, and FPS, then exports a looping animation with a live progress bar |
Each layer is an independent drawing pass composited on top of previous layers. The sticky header at the top of the panel contains an Add Layer button.
| Control | Description |
|---|---|
| Drag handle | Reorder layers by dragging |
| Toggle | Enable / disable the layer |
| Thumbnail | Live mini-preview, updates after each render |
| Dice (🎲) | Randomize all settings for this layer |
| Duplicate | Clone the layer with a new seed |
| ▲▼ | Collapse / expand the layer body |
| × | Delete the layer |
| Right-click | Copy / paste layer settings |
| Parameter | Effect |
|---|---|
| Style | One of 33 drawing algorithms, grouped by category |
| Blend Mode | Screen (default), Add, Normal, or Multiply |
| Symmetry | Rotational repeat count (1–8) |
| Seed | RNG seed — change for a different arrangement |
| Scale | Radius of the pattern (0.1–1.0) |
| Complexity | Number / intricacy of curves |
| Density | Stroke weight and line count |
| Glow | Bloom/glow halo intensity |
| Color Drift | How far colours shift along the palette per curve |
| Ripple | Radial displacement noise |
| Wash | Watercolour bleed overlay |
| Abstract | Turbulence distortion + painted blur |
| Saturation | Colour vividness for this layer |
| Brightness | Luminance boost for this layer |
| Rotation | 2D rotation of the rendered layer (0–1 = 0–360°) |
| Opacity | Layer transparency (0–1) |
Each layer has its own palette grid. You can select from the 18 built-in palettes or any custom palettes you have created (marked ★). Use New Palette to open the palette editor, or Edit to modify a selected custom palette.
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
MandalaParameters.swift |
All model structs (StyleLayer, BaseLayerSettings, EffectsLayerSettings, DrawingLayerSettings, GraffitiLayerSettings, MandalaParameters) — fully Codable with backward-compatible decodeSafe fallbacks |
MandalaRenderer.swift |
Core renderer — 33 curve styles including 3D (hyperboloid, torus, nautilus, torus knot, sphere grid, tesseract), Strange Attractor, Superformula, Universe and Symbols styles, base/effects layers, CIFilter post-processing, layer preview thumbnails |
PixelBuffer.swift |
Float32 additive pixel buffer with Wu anti-aliased line drawing, vDSP-accelerated merge/scale/clear, and filmic tone-mapping |
ColorPalettes.swift |
18 built-in named colour palettes |
PaletteEditor.swift |
Custom palette editor — PaletteStop, CustomPalette (Codable), PaletteEditorSheet with gradient preview and HSB stop editor |
AppState.swift |
@MainActor ObservableObject — debounced auto-generate, persistent history, save/load, batch/animation export, custom palette persistence, favourites |
ContentView.swift |
Root layout (3-column HSplitView: scene panel + canvas + layers panel) |
CanvasView.swift |
Canvas with pan/zoom, toolbar (resolution picker, copy, favourites), drawing overlay (experimental) |
ScenePanel.swift |
Left panel — Background, Effects, and Export cards; animation options sheet |
PalettePanel.swift |
Right panel — sticky add-layer header, draggable LayerCard views |
ParameterPanel.swift |
Shared UI components (PaletteSwatch, etc.) |
- Base layer — solid colour (tone-map bypassed, exact RGB) / gradient / pattern / grain / image / auto (palette-derived gradient + grass fibers)
- Per mandala layer — curves collected into
CurveDrawTaskstructs, drawn in parallel viaDispatchQueue.concurrentPerforminto per-thread sub-buffers, merged withvDSP_vadd, then brightness-scaled bybufferSize / 1600, then glow → wash → abstract → colour grade applied; 3D styles use perspective projection with depth-shaded weights - Blend composite — each layer blended onto the running composite using the chosen blend mode (Screen, Add, Normal/Lighten, or Multiply); optional 2D rotation via
CIAffineTransform; optional opacity viaCIColorMatrix - Graffiti layer — airbrush strokes rendered into a CGContext with Gaussian blur for softness, composited via CISourceOverCompositing
- Drawing layer — freehand strokes with per-stroke color, composited with a chosen blend mode and symmetry
- Solid background (when type = Color) — merged in after all layers using
CILightenBlendMode; dark areas become the background colour, bright mandala content is unaffected - Effects layer — wash → sepia → fade → bloom → local contrast → grain applied as CIFilter passes; brightness/contrast, 3D relief (hard-light emboss), vignette, chromatic aberration; dimming, erasure, highlights, stars, glitter drawn into PixelBuffers and screen-composited
- Downscale — Lanczos downscale from 2× render buffer to output size
Frames are rendered in parallel using Swift's structured concurrency (withTaskGroup with per-frame Task.detached to keep the main actor free). The render canvas is expanded by √2 and each layer's scale is reduced proportionally, so after a center-crop to the target size the mandala appears identical to the static render — but the background fills all corner area that would otherwise be visible during rotation. MOV uses AVFoundation (HEVC), GIF uses CGImageDestination.