TITLE: Nazca
NAME: Fabien MOSEN
COUNTRY: BELGIUM (french speaking)
EMAIL: fabien.mosen@skynet.be
WEBPAGE: http://users.skynet.be/bs936509/EJ/lapinsbleus.htm
TOPIC: LANDMARKS
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT,
JPGFILE: fmnazca.jpg
ZIPFILE: fmnazca.zip
RENDERER USED: 

    POV 3.1g Superpatch
        

TOOLS USED: 

    CorelDraw!             
    Moray's texture editor


RENDER TIME: 

    1 second


HARDWARE USED: 

    Cray 3
    

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

 Sometimes between -300 and +800, the Nazca people drawn long
lines, surfaces, and giant animal figures onto the ground of
a desertic plateau.  The longest line measures 10 kilometers,
and the figures are hundreds of meters in diameter.
 The gypseous nature of the terrain allowed them to remove
a slight layer of soil, revealing a clearer tone.
 We are not certain about how they managed to create these
giant lines and figures (tough we can reasonably guess),
but we are absolutely unable totell WHY they did that.
 Both serious and fantaisist hypothesis were spread, from
astronomical calendar to landing indications (!), or
industrial weaving site... but the mystery remains.
 
 The traces where discovered in 1947 by Paul Kosok, flying
above the desert to do research about irrigation stuff,
but soon a German woman, matematician, decided to spare her
life to the analysis and preservation of Nazca : Maria Reiche.
 She had lived there until her passing in 1998, fighting against
the degradations caused by stupid militaries and tourists
(who did much harm to the site with their vehicles), and
trying to obtain the recognition and protection of this exceptionnal
place.                  

 The animal figure pictured in my image is the famous Condor
(in the upper right zone), the most-known Nazca figure, along 
with he Spider (not on the image).         
 The little black things at the center of the image are humans.

 This image is dedicated to Maria Reiche.  


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

 No height-field was harmed during the making of this image !
 
 After scanning 2 different detail-levelmaps of the traces,
 I retraced them, and produced 2 images : a height-map for
 the areas of the site, and, derived from it, a material-map
 with different colors for the carved and uncarved areas.
 
 The isosurface "function {pigment ...}" was used to 
 combinate  real displacement of a wrinkle-d surface and the
 pseudo-height-field, making the traces following the primary
 terrain displacement, and giving nice discrete real shadows;
 the earth texture was created in Moray (easier for colormaps),
 and the 'material-map' was layered over, with various filter
 value to control the tone of carved areas.