TITLE: Nighttime Near Saturn NAME: Michael Burschik COUNTRY: Germany EMAIL: Michael.Burschik@gmx.de TOPIC: The Future COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. JPGFILE: nns.jpg ZIPFILE: nns.zip RENDERER USED: Povray 3.5 TOOLS USED: Saturn data provided by Sigmund Kyrre Aas as@stud.ntnu.no RENDER TIME: 44 minutes HARDWARE USED: Athlon XP 1600, 256 MB RAM IMAGE DESCRIPTION: This is a view of a few buildings inside an oneill space habitat near Saturn. Parts of the planet and its rings are visible through the glass panels of the habitat. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: The planet Saturn and its rings were created using the data kindly provided by Sigmund Kyrre Aas , whose written permission was obtained in advance. All other objects were created by myself using CSG. The image is the result of my imagination struggling against my limited artistic talent and the dictates of plausibility. First of all, Saturn is probably much too far out from the sun to be a valid location for this kind of space habitat, and even if it were, the oneill would have to be oriented towards the sun, otherwise night and day would only last minutes. But I wanted to put something interesting in the background, so I ignored all plausibility in this case. Originally, I had envisaged a future city in the style of Radebaugh and others, with art deco skyscrapers, soaring streets and flying cars. Earlier scenes did contain these elements, but by and by I became convinced that high speed transport inside an oneill space habitat was really only necessary along the panels, and that transportation systems would probably be installed in the hull, rather than above ground. As a result, a maglev track runs the length of the habitat in the middle of each panel, and an airship is visible in the background, but the elevated roads and flying cars had to go. And what about housing? Would there be skyscrapers in this kind of space habitat, or would its entire surface be transformed into some kind of suburbia? Or would housing be relegated to the hull itself, leaving the surface as a park or nature preserve? The more I think about it, the less certain I felt about it.