TITLE: It's all about atmosphere...
NAME: Joanne Simpson
COUNTRY: Australia
EMAIL: corvus@onewhiteraven.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.onewhiteraven.com
TOPIC: Great Inventions
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: mp_inven.jpg
ZIPFILE: mp_inven.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    Megapov 1.0

TOOLS USED: 
    megapov, MS-Excel

RENDER TIME: 
    9d 3h 46m 27s

HARDWARE USED: 
    Athlon 2.0, nvidia Geforce

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

Three early inventions for measuring atmosphere, in a very atmospheric
location.
Temperature - 1596
Galileo Galilei is often claimed to be the inventor of the thermometer, however
his instrument is strictly a thermoscope as it merely indicated temperature
differences. 
Air Pressure - 1641
Torricelli's invention, the barometer, was also known as the "Torricelli's
tube". It was Galileo that suggested Torricelli use mercury in his vacuum
experiments, as a less-dense liquid such as water would require a tupe several
hundreds of feet high! He did, filling a 4 ft long glass tube with mercury and
inverting the tube into a dish. Torricelli discovered that the variation of the
height of the mercury from day to day was caused by changes in the atmospheric
pressure.
Wind Speed - 1839
Thomas Romney Robinson was a well-known astronomer and meteorologist. One of his
most enduring legacies is the Robinson Cup-Anemometer, a device for measuring
wind speed. Robinson was motivated by the desire to monitor wind speed and its
variability with precision, following the destructive Great Wind of 6 January
1839. The first anemometer of this type was built at Armagh Observatory.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

Some new techniques for me - 
most shapes are modelled as spheres-of-revolution, or as CSG spheres and
cylinders. The chart function in Excel proved a very useful tool for modelling
and testing sor shapes.
Lighting is 4 spotlights in slightly different colours and positions.
Ground is an isosurface based on a random noise function.
The glowing clouds are a variable-density media statement.

Note: complicated media + radiosity + isosurfaces + transparent objects means a
VERY slow render!