EMAIL: joheriks@abo.fi
NAME: Johannes Eriksson
TOPIC: Future
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Space Industry
COUNTRY: Finland
RENDERER USED: 3D Studio Max 5
TOOLS USED: Rhinoceras 3.0, The Gimp, Celestia
RENDER TIME: 6min
HARDWARE USED: Athlon XP 1700


IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

This image is a vision of how industrial production and/or research
facilities may be put into earth orbit in a the future when space
enterprising becomes feasible for corporations. Zero gravity and lack
of atmosphere provide favorable conditions for the production of items
that require high-precision machining, such as electronics and engine
components.

The space station is built in modules, where each module is a
production plant owned by a corporation. It can be extended with more
modules, and modules can be retrieved back to earth. The low-cost
space shuttle (with reusable booster rockets) carries workers to and
from the factory. A fast-food restaurant has hired one of the module
slots and provides the workers with homely meals.

A careless worker has released a ball bearing which now floats away
from the station and into space. It is a great hazard to other
orbiters when it collides with them at high speed.

The aim of this image was not to make a spectacular "sci-fi"
space-station with anti-gravity engines and whatnot, but rather to
present a more realistic concept of an orbiting production plant.
In that sense it depicts a more "realistic" future instead of a
purely "imagined" future.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

The architecture of the space factory, especially the hexagonal
crossbar design, was inspired by the International Space
Station. Scale drawings were made of each objent before any 3D
modeling took place.

All objects were modelled in 3ds Max, except the space shuttle which
was modelled in Rhinoceros 3 and then imported into 3ds. The star
background was generated by the Celestia planetarium software, and the
earth image map is a public domain satellite photo. All other texture
maps were created from scratch in the gimp. The artist's name and
conversion to jpeg format were also done in the gimp.