TITLE: The Mathematics of Horror NAME: Chris Jeppesen COUNTRY: USA EMAIL: chrisj@digiquill.com WEBPAGE: http://www.kwansystems.org/ TOPIC: Horror COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. JPGFILE: cdjmath.jpg ZIPFILE: cdjmath.zip RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.1g MSVC compile TOOLS USED: Galaxy include File from Chris Colefax Paint Shop Pro 5.01 for PNG->JPG conversion RENDER TIME: About 6 hours modelling 1 hour 30 minutes 45 seconds rendering HARDWARE USED: AMD K6-2 300MHz 192MB memory IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Im not normally one afraid of math, but one day I was assigned a problem that just scared me to death: Find the maximum of a certain curve. Not just any curve, but THE BLACKBODY CURVE It is evil. It is hideous. It is horrifying. I did battle with it for 4 hours in a row, and it won. Not only did it defeat me, but everyone in my class! This image depicts the infamous equation, its graph, and the mental images inspired by it. The figure hanging by his neck from the curve represents the problem's solution. The heavy chains symbolize the multiple iterations of the chain rule required to solve it. The cleaver depicts what I wanted to do to this equation. This image is dedicated to Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906), whose grave is depicted here. He discovered Boltzmann's constant, the 'k' in the equation. While he was alive, he made some important advances in theroetical thermodynamics, but no one believed him. It drove him to depression and eventually suicide. He had engraved on his tombstone the central equation to his theory, which was experimentally verified a few short days after his death. Mathematics by itself is ugly, dull, and boring. It is only when math is put to its true purpose does it become interesting, and that purpose is making pretty pictures! Long live raytracing! DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: I have known about this topic for a full year, and didn't think I was going to do anything for it. The inspiration didn't hit until 10/27, when this exact same problem was assigned in both Infrared detection class and Fiber Optics class. Since the undercurrent theme of this image is Mathematics, I wanted to use only primitives in this drawing. This image is composed of nothing but spheres, cones, cylinders, superellipsoids, prisms, (truetype gets converted into prisms internally) toruses, and julia fractals. No image maps, no height fields, nothing but unadulterated math in its most beautiful and haunting purity. Its all CSG, done one piece at a time in the POV-Ray editor. First I did the equation, then the graph using a while loop and the actual blackbody formula. The hanging figure was next. I copied him from a project I did a few weeks ago, and posed him apropriately. Next came the grave, with its engraving done by CSG difference, and a Julia fractal for a flower. I wanted a foundation to put the image on, so next was the green grid. The torus pumpkin, carved with the Kwan Systems logo is my signature and a symbol of Halloween, the most horrifying of holidays. Next came the chains, which were made again with a while loop, and draped over the d/dl symbol by eye. The cleaver was the last object created. The image needed some kind of background, so I added some stars. The image then reched the point when one more object would ruin it. So I stopped. When this image was rendered, anti aliasing had to be turned up to something absurdly high (+a0.001 +am2 +r3) before all the jaggies on the equation were eliminated. This raised the image rendering time tenfold to something respectable for an IRTC entry. Complete source code is available, except for the Kwan Systems logo.