TITLE: Babbage NAME: Douglas Eichenberg COUNTRY: USA EMAIL: Douge@ppe.com WEBPAGE: n/a TOPIC: History COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING JPGFILE: babbage.jpg RENDERER USED: POVRay v3.1 TOOLS USED: Moray v3.1 RENDER TIME: 27h 4m 47s HARDWARE USED: 400 MHz PII/Windows NT/64Mb IMAGE DESCRIPTION: The British-born mathematician Charles Babbage (1792-1871), a prolific and eccentric inventor, is credited with the design for the first digital computer. Called an "analytical engine," the device stored data in columns of wheels, each wheel being capable of being moved to one of 10 positions. Each position thus corresponded to one decimal digit. The machine was programmed by a series of punched cards. By moving a lever forward and back numerical problems could be computed in a cumulative manner by the series of wheels. He visualized his computer incorporating a memory bank, comparing results, and printing out required data. It was also to modify its own program and process data accordingly. Babbage devoted the final 37 years of his life to its development. In the end, he was embittered by what he felt was a lack of recognition for the importance of his work and disappointed by his failure to bring his principles within sight of completion. The fact was that he was attempting the impossible with the means at his disposal. The concept and the principles behind the "analytical engine," on the other hand, were absolutely sound. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: I used an (as yet) unregistered version of Moray. The scene contains 2761 frame level objects, 6 area lights, and 4 point lights. The model of the analytical engine is roughly 20 units wide by 40 units long by 60 units high. The walls in the background, although appearing to be only a few feet away, are actually about 1500 units away. I originally put them that far back because the shadows created by all the lights were too distracting; later I went through and assigned a fade distance to each light. The unseen ceiling in the image is made of reflective aluminum, and a pair of reflective bronze walls are placed just behind the camera, parallel to the front and side faces of the analytical engine (ie. opposite the visible wooden walls); these three walls reflect some of the light back into the scene, as well as causing subtle reflections that help make the metal look more realistic. Radiosity was left on for the rendering, which may have caused some additional color changes. Also, there is a small amount of iridescence in the bronze metal that the analytical engine is made of. The table and the walls are made of the same wood material, but only the table is reflective. All in all, the toughest part was the lighting, which took the same amount of time as creating the model (about a month).