EMAIL: brett.dickson@gmail.com
NAME: Brett Dickson
TOPIC: Catastrophe
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Tangiwai Disaster
COUNTRY: Australia
RENDERER USED: Povray 3.6
TOOLS USED: Fractint for Windows
            The GIMP
            Open Office Draw
RENDER TIME: 6 hours 12 minutes 38 seconds
HARDWARE USED: HP/Compaq nx9010 laptop (3.06 GHz Pentium 4)
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
At approximately 10:20 pm on Christmas Eve 1953 the Wellington to Auckland overnight express plunged into the lahar swollen Whangaehu River.  There were 285 people on board the train, 151 of them died in the disaster.  

This scene depicts the locomotive - Ka 949 - leaving the broken end of the bridge and plunging into the river.

More information on the Tangiwai Disaster can be found on the following websites: 
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Tangiwai/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangiwai_disaster
http://danger-ahead.railfan.net/accidents/tangiwai/home.html
http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Childrens/NZDisasters/Tangiwai.asp

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
Extensive research into NZGR Ka class Locomotives was done to enable the modelling of an accurate locomotive.  The locomotive and tender are based almost entirely on known and derived dimensions for a Ka class locomotive (there are approximately 80 defined constants for various dimensions of the locomotive and tender).  The locomotive and tender are primarily composed from CSG objects.  The  locomotive nameplate on the front of the boiler is constructed from a height field.  The mask for the height field was  created using Open Office Draw.  The reflector on the locomotive lamp is an isosurface parabola with a highly reflective surface.

The background is composed from a number of height fields and an isosurface for the contents of the Whangaehu River.

Note: Depending on Monitor Gamma settings this image can sometimes appear very dark.