EMAIL: richmit@member.ams.org
NAME: Mitch Richling
TOPIC: winter 
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Heart of a Snowflake
COUNTRY: USA
WEBPAGE: http://hardwoodproduct.airweb.net/personal/richmit/index.html
JPGFILE: mjr_win2.jpg
ZIPFILE: mjr_win2.zip
RENDERER USED: Povray 3.1.g
TOOLS USED: Emacs, Povray, Photoshop, MacOS X
RENDER TIME: 
HARDWARE USED: 800MHz G4, 1GB RAM

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

This image has the same secret my other entry into this round has.
What is the secret of this image?  The secret is that only four
spheres and 4 triangles make up this image.  No textures, no colors
(except white), no bump maps, no normal maps, no bit maps, no
turbulence -- just simple reflection.  That's right, the complexity of
the image is due 100% to simple reflection off of four smooth, shiny
spheres and four smooth, flat, shiny objects.  This image really
exhibits the reason we use ray tracers -- they TRACE RAYS. :)

Much of the beauty of a snowflake is derived from light reflecting off
of, and refracting through, a very simple substance with virtually no
color of it's own.  I appreciate the fact that this image's beauty is
completely derived from reflection.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

Four spheres of radius 2 are placed so that each sphere touches every
other sphere, but so that no two spheres intersect in more than one
point.  Each sphere is a perfect mirror. The centers of the spheres
will be at the vertexes of a regular tetrahedron.  Three faces of the
tetrahedron are then constructed out of four triangles that are white
and highly reflective.  The camera is pointing directly at the
back-most sphere, and is located near (0,0,0). The image is then
formed from the reflections of the four triangles.  the plane.  This
is why the triangles can not be perfect mirrors.  If they were, no
image would be formed!

The image will have interesting fractical properties if the faces of
the tetrahedron have color.  Very striking images, that make the
snowflake image appear dull, can be obtained when some color is added
to the mix.  For examples of such images, see my web page.

The Povray input file that generated this image is included in the
submission... all 30 lines of it. :)