Update: Finalized code, small changes.

Update: Added MCE + Inline::C example.

Solutions allowing one to run with or without threads for comparing against the shootout demonstration. The fastest time posted at the Computer Language Benchmarks site is 19.77 seconds. Perl + MCE + Inline::C runs 10 times faster.

Testing was done on a Core i7 (Haswell 4 Cores with HT at 2.6 GHz / 1600 MHz memory).

$ time perl mandelbrot1.pl 16000 > m1.pbm

  real 8m38.383s   ( Perl code by Mykola Zubach, threads only )

$ time perl mandelbrot2.pl 16000 > m2.pbm

  real 3m52.245s   ( MCE supporting threads and processes )

$ time perl mandelbrot3.pl 16000 > m3.pbm

  real    1.974s   ( MCE + Inline::C, mind boggling )
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# http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/performance.php?test=ma
+ndelbrot
# based on Perl code contributed by Mykola Zubach
# parallelization via MCE by Mario Roy

use strict;
use warnings;

use MCE::Flow;

use constant MAXITER =>  50;
use constant LIMIT   =>  4.0;
use constant XMIN    => -1.5;
use constant YMIN    => -1.0;
use constant WHITE   => "\000";
use constant BLACK   => "\001";

my ( $w, $h, $m, $invN );

sub draw_line {
   my ( $mce, $y, $chunk_id ) = @_;
   my ( $Cr, $Zr, $Zi, $Tr, $Ti );
   my $Ci = $y * $invN + YMIN;
   my $line;

   LOOP: for my $x (0 .. $w - 1) {
      $Cr = $x * $invN + XMIN;
      $Zr = $Zi = $Tr = $Ti = 0.0;

      for (1 .. MAXITER) {
         $Zi = $Zi * 2 * $Zr + $Ci;
         $Zr = $Tr - $Ti + $Cr;
         $Ti = $Zi * $Zi;
         $Tr = $Zr * $Zr;
         if ($Tr + $Ti > LIMIT) {
            $line .= WHITE;
            next LOOP;
         }
      }

      $line .= BLACK;
   }

   MCE->gather( $chunk_id, pack('B*', $line) );
}

## MAIN()

$w = $h = shift || 200;
$m = int( $h / 2 );
$invN = 2 / $w;

# Compute upper-half only, gather lines

my %picture = mce_flow_s { chunk_size => 1 }, \&draw_line, 0, $m;

# Output PBM image header
# Output upper half
# Remove first and last lines
# Output bottom half in reverse

binmode STDOUT;

print "P4\n$w $h\n";
print  @picture{ sort { $a <=> $b } keys %picture };
delete @picture{ 1, $m + 1 };
print  @picture{ sort { $b <=> $a } keys %picture };
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Below, code using MCE + Inline::C for extra performance.

# http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/performance.php?test=ma
+ndelbrot
# based on Perl code contributed by Mykola Zubach
# parallelization via MCE + Inline::C by Mario Roy

use strict;
use warnings;

use MCE::Flow;

use Inline 'C' => Config => CCFLAGSEX => '-O2';
use Inline 'C' => <<'END_C';

   #define MAXITER  50
   #define LIMIT    4.0
   #define XMIN    -1.5
   #define YMIN    -1.0
   #define WHITE   "\000"
   #define BLACK   "\001"

   int width; double invN;

   void c_init( int _width, double _invN )
   {
      width = _width;
      invN  = _invN;
   }

   SV* c_draw_line( int y )
   {
      SV *line = newSVpvn( "", 0 );

      double Ci, Cr, Zr, Zi, Tr, Ti;
      int x, j;

      Ci = (double) y * invN + YMIN;
      x  = -1;

      LOOP: do {
         if ( ++x >= width ) break;

         Cr = (double) x * invN + XMIN;
         Zr = Zi = Tr = Ti = 0.0;

         for (j = 1; j <= MAXITER; j++) {
            Zi = Zi * 2.0 * Zr + Ci;
            Zr = Tr - Ti + Cr;
            Ti = Zi * Zi;
            Tr = Zr * Zr;
            if (Tr + Ti > LIMIT) {
               sv_catpvn( line, WHITE, 1 );
               goto LOOP;
            }
         }

         sv_catpvn( line, BLACK, 1 );

      } while ( 1 );

      return sv_2mortal( line );
   }

END_C

my ( $w, $h, $m, $invN );

sub draw_line {
   my ( $mce, $y, $chunk_id ) = @_;
   my $line = c_draw_line( $y );
   MCE->gather( $chunk_id, pack('B*', $line) );
}

## MAIN()

$w = $h = shift || 200;
$m = int( $h / 2 );
$invN = 2 / $w;

# Init C

c_init( $w, $invN );

# Compute upper-half only, gather lines

my %picture = mce_flow_s { chunk_size => 1 }, \&draw_line, 0, $m;

# Output PBM image header
# Output upper half
# Remove first and last lines
# Output bottom half in reverse

binmode STDOUT;

print "P4\n$w $h\n";
print  @picture{ sort { $a <=> $b } keys %picture };
delete @picture{ 1, $m + 1 };
print  @picture{ sort { $b <=> $a } keys %picture };
[download]