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Ray Tracing Jell-O Brand Gelatin (1987) [pdf]
- gdubs 12y agoFamous 1984 distributed ray tracing image [1] remains one of my all-time favorite CG images. (Scroll to last page.) 1: http://www.eng.utah.edu/~cs6965/papers/p137-cook.pdf http://www.eng.utah.edu/~cs6965/papers/p137-cook.pdf
- PhasmaFelis 12y agoThat is absolutely mind-boggling for 1984. I especially love the reflections. It's not even noticeable unless you look carefully, but you can see reflections of cluttered windows, a light-up sign, and a human silhouette. I'd love to rotate the camera and see what their actual out-of-frame scene looks like.
- gdubs 12y agoYea, it's crazy. My hunch is that they used reflection mapping for those details like the windows. It's hard to believe this was done in '84 when you look at the other graphics being rendered around then. People have redone this image, and it never looks as realistic.
- s-macke 12y agoDon't forget the first rendered fur. http://simulationcorner.net/fur.png http://simulationcorner.net/fur.png The bear looks still so nice. Even nowadays The picture is from this paper from 1989: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=74361 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=74361
- gdubs 12y agoGreat image, hadn't seen that one before. The lighting model is beautiful.
- fractallyte 12y agoI remember seeing this image in an issue of Scientific American, and for many years could not believe it was computer generated. It was just so out of the ordinary for CG at the time.
- yosyp 12y agoWhat a fun paper, but seems like a cute joke to me. All that the author did was use the basic wave equation with changed variables to simulate Jell-O. The article has algorithm and theory tags, but this is neither. I wish they had gone into detail about the numerical algorithm used to simulate the wave equation in three dimensions (Runga-Kutta order 4 probably?). As someone with a physics background, this is far from theory, or even original research. It's interesting that they mention the necessity of Markov Chains for intersection calculations. Would anyone know if better techniques have been devised since the publication of this paper?
- kanwisher 12y agoI like the part where he needs a room full of Amigas or a Cray to render the image
- derefr 12y agoReminds me of a http://reboot.wikia.com/wiki/Null http://reboot.wikia.com/wiki/Null, somewhat. (1987 graphics tech is about right for a 1994 TV show.)
- kens 12y agoThis article is by Paul Heckbert, who is also known for writing a raytracer that fit on the back of his business card. http://fabiensanglard.net/rayTracing_back_of_business_card/ http://fabiensanglard.net/rayTracing_back_of_business_card/ Since there seems to be some confusion in the comments, I'll point out that the Jell-O paper is 100% not serious. It's a satire of excessively-mathematical computer graphics papers. (Source: I shared an office with Paul.)
- frozenport 12y agoWHY DOES HE REFER TO HIMSELF IN THE PLURAL?
- sjtrny 12y agoStandard style in scientific literature. Partly due to blind peer review (using the more general 'we' instead of 'I' to mask the identity/identities of the author).
- ginko 12y agoIt's the common style in scientific writing.
- poizan42 12y agoShould have added a dog as his coauthor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Matzinger#Past_and_current_work_with_dogs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Matzinger#Past_and_curren...
- Someone 12y agoDoes anybody know more about the joke with the reference to [Haeberli, 1872], a paper by Paul Haeberli and Paul Heckbert, which is "to appear"?