My Kitchen
~~~~~~~~~~

Probably not a very original image for this month's theme, but who needs
originality anyway?


Scene Creation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Most of the image was done by hand, since it is the way I tend to work
best, being useless with most GUIs.   The only exceptions were the mug
handles and kettle cable - both modelled using MNM's splined polypipe,
the camera was positioned using Moray, and a simple mock-up of the
scene, and the tiles were placed using a hacked up c program to place
them in an array.

Both the kettle and the branches of the mug-tree were designed with the
aid of Maple - a package for doing symbolic maths on computer.   By
simply feeding it the equations of a 2d hyperbola, and a circle, a units
from the origin, I could ask it to solve the simultaneous equations to
find both a, and the point of intersection, assuming they meet at a
tangent.   The effect of this is to give a smooth join where a sphere
and a hyperboloid meet.   The kettle was done in a similar way, but
using two stretched spheres (circles).

The most difficult part was by far hanging the mugs on the tree.   In
fact, after a few halted attempts at this, I almost gave up.   Just
then, I had an idea how it could be done.   I have since discovered that
the method I employed *has* been used before, in a number of situations.
I call it `iterated inquiry with deviation', though you may know it
under the name `trial and error'.   Given a rough idea what angle mugs
`like' to hang at, I tried this, and discovered that the mugs
intersected each other, and the main `trunk'.   By rotating the mugs so
that they lay against the trunk, I tried spinneng them aroung the
y-axis, to se if they separated.   Eventually they did, but the angles
looked ridiculous.   It was clear they were going to have to support
each other off the trunk.   From here, I simply put values in, adding
here, subtracting there until I got a realistic picture.   All this had
to be rendered after each modification, so I was glad I decided to get
the Pentium after all :).   Once the bottom layer was done, I had
originally just translated and rotated a couple of mugs to put them at
the top.   However, they were now floating some distance from the trunk.
I had to rotate them back to the trunk, then make them `push' each other
opposite ways (rotate about z), until they rested against each other.  
The results are before you, so decide yourself what you think.

One thing you may note if you check the sources is that some of the
objects are reasonably complex; possibly more so than the scene demands.
The reason for this is that I am making the objects open for public use.
If you like what I have done, feel free to extract any part of the
scene, and use it in your own.   If you do, I would appreciate being
notified, especially if you modify the objects in any way, though if
this is difficult, don't worry too much.


Rendering
~~~~~~~~~
The image was rendered, using POV-Ray, at 800x600 +a0.1 and took 15
hours.   The reason for the low anti-alias value was that the surface
showed rather nasty aliasing at higher values, due to the wrinkles and
reflection.


Legalese
~~~~~~~~

The image, and all source, is copyright Robert Arthur (1995).   You may
use it however you like, and distribute it using any means at your
disposal.   All I ask is that if the image is used in any profit-making
way (such as books, CD-Roms etc - BBSs are OK) you first notify me -
chances are you will get permission.

Also, if you use any or all of the source to create an image other than
that I supplied, for distribution purposes, please credit me in the
source.

I hope you enjoy the image, and happy tracing!

Robert Arthur
rea@st-and.ac.uk
http://www-hons-cs.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~rea/Homepage.html