EMAIL: gmccarter@hotmail.com NAME: Glenn McCarter TOPIC: Great Engineering Achievements COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. TITLE: "Dawn Patrol" COUNTRY: USA WEBPAGE: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/2006/ RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.0 TOOLS USED: sPatch (for bezier patch creation) Paint Shop Pro (lettering; convert image to JPEG) RENDER MUSIC: No Doubt "Tragic Kingdom" RENDER TIME: 7h 38m HARDWARE USED: Pentium II - 266 mhz IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Two millennia ago in east Asia. It's another warm spring morning. The Wall remains a mute barrier against the raiders from the north. Sentries continue to keep a watchful eye into the distance. But all is quiet. The barbarians will not come today. The Great Wall of China was begun during the Qing dynasty, from 221-206 bc. About 2400km (1500mi) long, it is the longest man made structure in the world. This scene shows less than one tenth of one percent of the Wall. VIEWING THE IMAGE: This image is stereoscopic -- view it properly, and you will see a striking three dimensional image. Here's how: sit a longer-than-usual distance from your computer monitor. Don't focus on the monitor; rather, look THROUGH it with your eyes focused in the far distance. (Do not "cross" your eyes.) Each eye will see two images of the Wall. Try to adjust your focus until your right eye sees the right image, and your left eye sees the left image. As you do this, these images will merge into one. The center image will be in stereo. If you still have difficulty seeing the stereo image, try placing a vertical, flat divider between your nose and the black bar in the center, forcing each eye to see only one image. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: The scene is 100% raytraced in one pass: no image_maps, no "cut and paste", no post-processing were used. So how did I make the stereo image? It's all done with mirrors. Instead of seeing the scene directly, the camera is instead looking at a pair of mirrors, with a black background behind them. The mirrors, angled at 45-degrees, reflect outwards into another pair of mirrors beyond camera view. These outer mirrors reflect towards the actual scene. Here's an ascii top view of the setup: | | | | Great Wall | | | | ____________________ Black Background \ \ / / \ \ / / \ \/ / Mirror Mirrors Mirror o Camera Trace rays from the camera to the Great Wall, bouncing off the mirrors, and you will see how the image is generated. I created everything in the scene, specifically for this IRTC image. The CSG buildings were created directly in the POV-Ray text editor, but the Wall itself, the guards, the flags, and even the bushes were made from bezier patches, which were created in sPatch. I've become yet another true believer in sPatch, the best tool around for patch manipulation. The mountains in the scene are unique: each has it's own heightfield, scale, colors, and texture. By careful manipulation of these, various terrains can be simulated, from nearby rocks and flora to distant hills. Fog is also used to provide a sense of distance. The zipfile includes an easy-to-use POV-Ray include file to add this stereo effect to any POV scene. But it's not yet complete. Watch my website for updates... Try adding this 3D stereo effect to your next rendering. Then you can view your own Great Engineering Achievement in 3D!