Brian and Dawn's Ray Tracing Project

Where we go when we start day dreaming during class

View of Saturn from the moon Dione

This image uses a fractal primitive to simulate the surface of the moon. Saturn is texture mapped using a bitmap downloaded from NASA. The rings are a sweeper surface that are both texture mapped and transparency mapped. Notice how you can see the gaps in the rings when you look at the shadow on the planets surface. The star patterns are generated using a different fractal routine applied to the atmosphere.

Note the following images are jpeg compressed. If you see any unusual aliasing try looking at the Uncompressed bitmaps

    Uncompressed bitmap

Night at the island

This image was generated using 320,000 triangle fractal generated using a heterogeneous multi-dimensional fractal. The moon surface is texture mapped using a bitmap downloaded from NASA. The water effects are a procedural bump map that is generated by single dimensional fractal. The stars are done using the same single dimension fractal routine as the water but applied to the atmosphere instead. The image was 4x super sampled and ran in 227 seconds. If you look carefully you can see the stars reflecting in the water.

    Uncompressed bitmap

Daytime at the island

This image was generated using 320,000 triangle fractal generated using a heterogeneous multi-dimensional fractal. The water effects are a procedural bump map that is generated by single dimensional fractal. The sky is done using the same single dimension fractal routine as the water but applied to the atmosphere instead. The background water is a similar algorithm but using different colors so they will shade darker and appear to be water.

    Uncompressed bitmap

AVI's of day and night on the island

These clips are generated by sweeping the camera around the center point of the view in each of the previous two images. There are 360 frames in each clip. They were four times over sampled at each point. But then they were compressed into the AVI so some aliasing does occur.

View night on the island (avi)    (mpeg)

View day on the island (avi)    (mpeg)

Link to early work

Write up of work