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I have made a mock-up visual of a 3D Mandelbrot where you take a 2D transparent image of a mandelbrot.
Trace the outlline of it with polygons so you have a 2D polygonal mesh of a mandelbrot
Make it so the inside is not filled
clone it. then copy it 90 degrees. then 45 degrees all the way around 360 degrees.
and do it many times.
Then connect all the edges together to the next layer over.
and fill it in with polygon faces all the way around.
Then you have an actual 3D mandelbrot (Not mandelbulb or mandelbox!)

I have an example that ive made to sort of get the idea put into place.
Has anyone made a finished and completed version of this?

it looks like somewhat of a weird spaceship with an infinitely pointy tip

Heres a screenshot of my unfinished design (its very hard to build it manually with polygons and i struggled to even get what I currently have showed to have the mandelbrot texture)

I think you are describing a surface of revolution.

See attached Fragmentarium example and output image.

Possibly. but significantly more detailed than that.

No luck finding that on google images.

You want to rotate the mandelbrot-structure around an axis?
welcome to the quaternion mandelbrot!

for your idea: why did you use a mesh? you could've taken every point and rotated it on it's own around a new axis, your solution is really expensive and since it's a fractal, meshing distorts the real mandelbrot set.

How would I do it then?
I dont mind a few million polygons thats fine as long as I can see it reasonably detailed.

if you have the point (x,y) with z = x + iy then the coresponding point on angle phi is (x,y*cos(phi),y*sin(phi)).
No need for millions of polygons there.

i have no idea what any of that means sorry i'm new to fractals still.
I dont know how to generate them i only know how to use existing fractal programs to explore known fractals.. so making my own 3D model of it is extremely difficult..

I feel like this is more "real 3D mandelbrot" than the mandelbulb or mandelbox because its the actual mandelbrot morphed into 3D by taking the 2D mandelbrot. converting it to an outline. and cloning it an infinite around of times rotated on it's center axis which creates a proper 3D mandelbrot in my opinion.

You could also do something similar by cloning the 2D outline only once. then simply giving depth to the two merging surfaces on both sides depending on iteration count and it would be like two mandelbrots at 90 degree angles to each other intersecting at the center axis and given depth. Which would probably look really cool. Probably has already been done. I just dont know how to do it myself.

If rotational symmetry created more "proper" 3D fractals, then a sphere would be the ultimate 3D fractal: it is the most symmetric 3D shape. In reality, the opposite is true: zooming in, it's perfectly flat; the same is true to a degree of this rotationally symmetric Mandelbrot: the rotational symmetry means that as you zoom in you're getting a flat surface, not more details.

Still though.. there would be neat spirals and various shapes if its detailed enough!

I'd like to know the formula in a program to generate a 3D mandelbrot in this fashion! It's probably significantly more complex.. I wonder if theres a 3D fractal viewer that you can input such a formula
Maybe it can only be done by using 3D models it might be difficult to generate a formula of the mandelbrot in this form of 3D
theres many ways to view the model of it too.

There is a formula behind it that describes this rotational behaviour, but the math is pretty tough.

I suggest you first take a look into the known programs, a lot of your question shall find their answer there.
For writing and programming your own formulas you should check out fragmentarium!