EMAIL: roth@ens.ascom.ch
NAME: Martin Roth
TOPIC: Great Engineering Achievements
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION
COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Electric Lamp
COUNTRY: Switzerland
WEBPAGE: www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Way/2571
RENDERER USED: povray 3.01
TOOLS USED: LView for conversion
RENDER TIME: 60h 17min
HARDWARE USED: Sparc Ultra 1
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
 There's not much to say, really. I'm trying to show what could be a physic professor's
 latest gadget, some years after Thomas Alva Edison came up with the great idea to use
 electricity to make light.
 I hope this still fits the topic.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
 Firstly I made the fine wire, which is a union of 3000 spheres. Since that didn't look
 bright enough I put 30 spherical halos around them. 
 The hardest part was to get the glas right, in order to make it look "ancient". It's
 a Surface Of Revolution, it took me some time to put the points correctly. Is there
 a tool for doing this?
 The glass is actually hollow (like in the real world), i.e. not just a SOR, but a SOR 
 with a smaller SOR cut out of it. Since this is not visible in the image I might have
 skipped this part, making the rendering faster. I'll try this now...
 The other objects are simple CSGs, exept for the plaque, which is a height field. 
 What made the rendering take so long is the number of light sources: There is one
 where the camera is and 5 in the light bulb. With just 2 light sources it took only
 10 hours, but then I had very stong, unrealistic looking shadows under the bulb.

 If you'd like the source file, feel free to email me.