" ... So the idea slumbered for 20 years until around 2007. I then independently pictured the same concept and published the formula for the first time in November 2007 at the fractalforums.com web site. The basic idea is that instead of rotating around a circle (complex multiplication), as in the normal 2D Mandelbrot, we rotate around phi and theta in 3 dimensional spherical coordinates (see here for details). In theory, this could theoretically produce our amazing 3D Mandelbrot. But here's the somewhat disappointing result of the formula (click any of the pictures for a larger view) ... "