EMAIL:         scorpius@csi.com
NAME:          Anthony C. D'Agostino
TOPIC:         Great Engineering Achievements
COPYRIGHT:     I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE:         Pyramid of Geodesic Structures
COUNTRY:       USA
WEBPAGE:       http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/scorpius
RENDERER USED: POV-Ray(tm) 3.02.proton (POVPro) 
               Faster than the DOS and WIN versions!
               ftp://terra.ru.com/pub/gamos/povray/povpro.zip
TOOLS USED:    POV-Ray and cjpeg
RENDER TIME:   3 hours 6 minutes
HARDWARE USED: Toshiba 430CDT NoteBook (120Mhz Pentium)

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IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
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Q. What does this image have to do with engineering?
A. Well, the pyramids of Giza are considered great engineering
   achievements.  The same can be said about geodesic domes,
   which are well known in the world of engineering for their
   light weight and rigidity.  This image is a combination of
   the two -- it is a pyramid of geodesic structures.

Q. Geodesic structures? I see a pyramid of golf balls.  What are
   you talking about?
A. The golf balls in my image have the qualities of a geodesic
   structure/dome.  To be more specific, the dimples are arranged
   in a geodesic pattern.  This pattern can be classified as a
   frequency 7 geodesic dome with an icosahedron base.  The golf
   ball object is a model of a 'Spalding Top-Flite PLUS' golf
   ball.

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DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
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First, I used the vector functions of POV-Ray to calculate the
exact position of 492 blob components.  Don't be fooled, this
was not easy for me.  In effect, this just creates a geodesic
dome.  Then, after adjusting the radius and threshold values
several times, and many test renders later, the dimples on the
golf ball were perfected.  I also spent alot of time choosing
the right colors, and tuning the area light to give the proper
soft lighting effect.  Finally, I went back and tuned the
dimples -- even though they were nearly perfect -- until I was
satisfied.

Looking back, I think it might have been easier for me to model
the actual pyramids of Giza or a standard geodesic dome.  I
wanted to do something that is somewhat different.  This is the
idea/image that I came up with.

The image was converted with the following options:
cjpeg -opt -qual 95 -sample 1x1