TITLE: Chlipalae flos coloratus (flowering stage) NAME: George Chlipala COUNTRY: United States of America EMAIL: cwolf@prairienet.org WEBPAGE: http://www.prairienet.org/~cwolf TOPIC: Nature COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. JPGFILE: c_flos1.jpg RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.0 TOOLS USED: Photoshop to convert to JPEG IMAGE DESCRIPTION: This picture shows the fictional flowering plant Chlipalae flos coloratus (Division Magnoliaphyta). It is a flowering plant that has undergone xeric modifiction, modifiction for cold, dry environments. It has a wood stem, and reduced, needle leaves. The multicolored pistil has a narrow style and large ovary. The stamens are large and have thick filaments. The petals are mottled blue and semi-transparent. The sepals, underlying the petals, have been reduced and are hidden to the untrained eye. These plants have been measured at heights of 1 meter. The combination of the brightly colored pistil and semi-transparent petals, make the pistil the attration point, rather than the petals of other flowers. These flowers are also unique, in that the major pollinators are small birds, rather than insects or bats. This makes the flower well adapted to the northern forests in which it lives. DESCRIPTION OF HOW IMAGE WAS CREATED: Long hours of imaging the scene then figuring the math for the POV-Ray file. The only modeler used was a piece of paper, a pencil, and my brain. This image is a further development of an image I created a few years ago. That time I did use a modeler to aid the construction of the image, however only the image itself was used as an inspiration for this images, similar to an artist using a photo to make a painting. Although I think the second "flower" was better. I would like to note that science was part of the design process. The first plant was created while I was taking botany in college. The second plant was created about one year later (spring 1997). At the time I was a junior majoring in biological research, since then I have graduated, and my interest is in the botanical realm (and still is). Thus, this picture was some science mixed with imagination. (Think about it... a scientist with an artistic creativity... woah, what is this world coming to???) *grin*