TITLE: John Bull Locomotive NAME: Mark J. Murphy COUNTRY: USA EMAIL: mj_murf@mindspring.com WEBPAGE: none TOPIC: Great Engineering Achievements COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. JPGFILE: mjm_jb.jpg ZIPFILE: mjm_jb.zip RENDERER USED: POVRAY 3.00e for Windows TOOLS USED: Paint Shop Pro (for JPEG conversion) RENDER TIME: 22 Hours, 3 Minutes HARDWARE USED: Pentium 166 MHz, 32 MB IMAGE DESCRIPTION: This is an image of the 'John Bull' locomotive which is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The railroad has been one of the most important engineering achievements of the past two centuries. It has been of primary importance in the expansion and economic growth of most developed countries (particularly in America). The 'John Bull' was imported from England to the USA and was the basis of one of the first successful railroads in this country. Why I chose the 'John Bull' as my model... - The John Bull is the world's oldest still-operable self-propelled vehicle. It was constructed in 1831 and served the Camden and South Amboy Railroad for many years. Later in its life, it was taken out for ceremonial runs in 1876 (Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia),1893 (Chicago),1927 (Baltimore) and finally in 1981 (its 150th anniversary). - I remember seeing the locomotive many years ago at the Smithsonian. The level of engineering achieved in its design and construction were quite impressive, considering the time period when it was built. - An interesting side-note: The John Bull arrived in Philadelphia after a six-week voyage from Liverpool. After unpacking the crates, one item was found to be missing -- the instructions! None of the men had even seen a locomotive before, but they somehow managed to complete the assembly in eleven days. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: I based the model on 4 images I found on the Smithsonian web pages and on a photo I found in a large volume on the history of the railroads. The loco- motive had actually gone through some design changes over the years, so it is tough to say exactly how it looked in 1831. I modeled the locomotive as it now appears in the museum. My scene takes place when the John Bull had been recently completed and is being tested. The locomotive is parked on the track, building up steam to make another test run. I didn't use any modeller to create the scene. I feel more comfortable doing it all by hand with a ruler and some paper. This is my fifth scene made with Povray, and my second entry in the IRTC. I wanted to make the model fairly 'new', as a well worn locomotive would hide much of the detail with dirt and grime. Consequently, the metal sufaces were made fairly reflective, with some added texture. The rivet heads were placed using WHILE loops (and occasionally some trigonometry). Since most of the parts were made of semi-dull metal, the model tended to look fairly dark. I used different shades of dark-gray (with texturing) to make the smaller pieces stand out better. I also placed the 'sun' at a low angle to simulate late in the afternoon. This gave the pieces better contrast and reduced excessive glare. I used the 'prism' and 'lathe' objects to create some of the pieces (such as the bell). Most items were made using CSG (loads of 'Unions' & 'Differences'). The cables and ropes are actually very small slices of very large torii. This produces a good facsimile of a 'hanging' cable. All pieces of wood were randomized to produced different grain patterns. I made a few new dark wood textures based on some existing textures in Povray. The smoke and steam were made using the Halo object. The smoke Halo object is contained in a flattened cone to give definition to the bottom of the cloud. (The pipe with the steam coming out of is sitting at a small angle to the top of the locomotive, rather than perpendicular. This is the way it appears in all the pictures. Why it is at an angle, I do not know.) The ground was made with a series of random (and some non-random) flattened spheres. They were textured with a texture I made which is meant to be grass with a fair number of small stones imbedded in it. Finally, the scene looked a little bare with just the train and the ground, so I added the firewood, a few tools, and some water barrels on the ramp in the background.