TITLE: Realms of Physics
NAME: Mark Borg
COUNTRY: Malta
EMAIL: markborg@keyworld.net
TOPIC: Maths & Physics
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: mphy184.jpg
ZIPFILE: mphy184.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    Povray 3.01 for DOS


TOOLS USED: 
    Windows Paintbrush for generating image maps
             GWS for converting to JPG


RENDER TIME: 
    1hr 30min


HARDWARE USED: 
    486DX 33Mhz


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


What I like especially about Physics is the large diversity of objects
that fall under its area of study - from the microscopic sub-atomic
level to enormous astrophysical phenomena. The same rules explain both the
small and the large.  In this image (my first with Povray), I have tried to
capture this idea.

In the background, there is a binary system made up of a red giant star
and a white dwarf star with the latter sucking in material from its larger
companion. I have also included some reddish nebulosity to fill in the sky.

For the foreground part, I made an atom ( which element? ..I simply have no
idea! ) hovering over an electronic board. This should symbolize the atomic
level with electrons running happily around the nucleus.  Since I was
experimenting a lot with halos ( it's a very cool feature that makes Povray
stand out from the other raytracers that I have used so far), I decided
to add something coming out of the board connectors - radiation? or plasma
tubes??
       


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


The main reason why I did this image was to try (and learn) the Povray
raytracer. I am still amazed by its power - I especially liked the halo thing.
Infact I used this feature extensively in this image. The red star's
atmosphere, the white dwarf star (although it doesn't show), the accreation
disk joining the two stars, the bluish plasma tubes, and the trails left
behind by the whizzing electrons are all some form or other of a halo.

For the nebulosity in the background, I first tried a halo object but I didn't
like much the result - so I just used a simple plane with a semi-transparent
texture. The board, resistors, chips and capacitors are all CSG objects. For
the reddish capacitors and chip tops I used image maps. The electronic board
also makes use of an image map to index different textures (...called material
map according to the manual if I am not mistaken).

The placement of the protons and neutrons in the nucleus is arranged in a
hexagonal-type lattice.  For this I used a piece of BASIC code from the book
"Animation How-To CD" by Jeff Bowermaster - a very good book. I enclosed the
whole nucleus in a transparent glass shell - this gives the extra highlight
near the center. I wish also to give credit to Chris Colefax for the
lensflar.inc file which was used for the flare of the white dwarf star.

Finally, I wish to mention that when I used a high antialiasing threshold,
the stars disappeared! The final image was rendered with antialiasing turned
off.