EMAIL: balan@imagine-net.com
NAME: balan r. menen
TOPIC: Time
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.0b7.mac1
TOOLS USED: Photoshop (for crop 'n conversion to JPEG)
RENDER TIME: approx. 40 hrs (in background)
HARDWARE USED: PowerMac 7200/75

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
 
	 venerable hourglass, 
  		symbol of objective time Š 
   			quantified, monotonous, irreversably linear Š
   			
	 sprouts new dimensions Š
 		in subjective perspective Š
  			qualified, multi-hued emotional meandering Š
  			
  			
DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
 
	Started with a close packed collection of 12 spheres about a central one.
	 	 	// If you want to try this hands on:  
   				starting with a single marble on a flat surfaceŠ
   				arrange six more around it in just kissing contact Š
				you get a cluster of seven marbles in a hexagonal grid Š
			
				now place three more marbles in the valleysŠ
				so that they touch the cenral one! Š that¹s ten marbles
			
				add three more from below to touch the central one Š
				that makes thirteen Š
			
			
	Guru Bucky Fuller called this ³Vector Equilibrium² / ³Dymaxion².   

	A crystallographer friend (Dr.K.Verughese) showed me how these 12 spheresŠ
		can be tidily located in integer cartesian coordinates
	  	by using the vertices of a cuboctahedron like this:

			<0,0,0>   // central 

			< 1,  1,  0> // and 12 kissin¹
			< 0,  1,  1>
			< 1,  0,  1>
			<-1,  0,  1>
			< 0, -1,  1>
			< 1, -1,  0>
			< 1,  0, -1>
			< 0,  1, -1>
			<-1,  1,  0>
			<-1, -1,  0>
			< 0, -1, -1>
			<-1,  0, -1>
			
			
	This sphere cluster was then Blobbed Š 
	 and the interlinking hourglass waists shaped by varying Threshold and Radius.
	  
	Then came coloringŠ
		starting White at centerŠ
		with pure Red, Green, Blue for three adjacent outer spheres Š
		and Cyan, Magenta, Yellow for their three polar opposites 
		leaves us with a ring a six to be assigned blended colors 
		(Red-Yellow, Red-Magenta, Green-Cyan, Green-Yellow, Blue-Cyan and Blue-Magenta)

	  and lights Š
		just three pure Red,Green,Blue lights Š
	 
	 
	Next ran a 180 frame animation rotating the ³Blobby Dymaxion² 
	 	about X and Y axes, looking for a good angle. 
	 		// As serendipity would have it Š 
	 		     the best frame happened to be Frame 101 !
	 		       with 102 coming in a close second


	Now it was glass time Š
		Solid glass doesn¹t work Š the stems just black out Š 
		It had to be hollow thin-walled glass Š 
		using CSG:Difference of two BlobbyDymaxions with different thresholds Š
			// 0.488 for the outer and 0.4895 for inner 
			//for a Radius =1 and StrengthVal=0.955

	The finish is standard F_Glass3 with transparency upped to 0.98
	
		/***
		It seems the finish has to be specified with each sphere during blobbing!
		Calling finish after blobbing caused some strange but pleasant effects. 
		The hilites are gone and the whole rendering took on a bright watercolorish lookŠ 
		very flatlandish Š primitive , childishly bold!
		
  		so i am entering that render also ŠŠ
  		***/
  		
  		
	Getting accurate framing was difficult, so i wrote a small utility Š
	 	to find the row-column range for  rendering a part of a larger Final render. 
	 	That proved to be useful for doing sample renderings 
	 	of certain key parts of the picture at different settings Š
	 	
	Found atmospherics and radiosity did not add anything to this model. 
		And also that the ten-fold cost of supersampling and anti-aliasing did not 
		provide significant additional info. So decided not to use any anti-aliasing.


	/* Am not presenting the source now becasue it is a part of a larger animation Š
	   and would be confusing because i tend to name variables in my own language !*/