TITLE: The Ingersoll Regulator Schoolhouse Clock
NAME: Robert "Draugnar" Bolin
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: Robert_E_Bolin@hill-top.com
WEBPAGE: (under construction)
JPGFILE: schlclok.jpg
ZIPFILE: schlclok.zip
TOPIC: School
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.01 for Windows 95, Pentium Optimized
TOOLS USED: Notepad <g>, Paint Shop Pro for JPG conversion and signature.
RENDER TIME: 7 hours 41 minutes 4 seconds.
HARDWARE USED: Gateway P5-166 w/ 32 Meg RAM, 1.2 Gig master, 600 Meg slave.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

The sun is setting.  It's almost 7:30 in the evening and the teacher
is just finishing next week's lesson plans.  She's been watching the
clock ever since the children left.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

Design Notes:

This clock is actually based on two clocks.  The body is based on a
Seth Thomas Schoolhouse Regulator circa 1870 and the face plate is
based on a Waterbury Schoolhouse Regulator.  The Ingersoll name was
owned by Waterbury Clock Company for their watch line, but I liked
it so well that I thought it would work nice as an engraving on the
glass.

Waterbury eventually became U.S Time and then TIMEX.  I hope TIMEX
forgives me for referring to one of their founding companies and for
using a competitor's case design.  Seth Thomas went out of business
in 1956, having never truly recovered from the great depression.
This is a shame as they made some of the most simple yet elegant
clocks.

Consider this clock to exist in an alternate timeline <grin>.

HAD Ingersoll ever been a clock line and HAD U.S. Time Corporation
bought Seth Thomas out of bankruptcy, I'd like to think this
beautiful design would have been made.

Technical Notes:

For the first time ever, I used the #while and #if directives.  The
face of the clock is built entirely from scratch and I didn't want
to hand place each and every number, so I looped through both sets
of numbers and through a series of brass cylinders that make up the
minute markers and the "on the fives" markers.  The trickiest part
of the #while loops was the text for the Roman numerals.  I had to
develop a series of #if structures and nested #while loops to
generate the Roman numerals.  No, "IIII" is not incorrect.  Every
example of a schoolhouse clock with Roman numerals I found on the
web had "IIII" instead of "IV".

The Waterbury Schoolhouse Regulator showed what the current day of
the month was with the outer edge being numbered 1 to 31 and a long
thin hand pointing to the outer edge.  It also had markers for the
minutes and a thicker marker "on the fives".  I chose to do these
in brass and raise them from the surface of the face just a hair.
I think this really compliments the face as well as the brass used
on the body and keeps the face from becoming too busy, a problem I
see in the original face where everything is done in black.

I have included all of the required True Type fonts and GIF/PNG image
maps for this image in the ZIP file with the source.  I have also
included two smaller JPG's which were the inspiration for the body and
the face plate and hands.  I made a minor variation to the pendulum
case because I had no means for creating the text of REGULATOR with
a curved bottom and a flat top.  Instead I opted to make the two R's
slightly larger than the rest of the word and make the whole pendulum
case's front be clear glass.