1) Image measurement.  We had some wafers manufactured with different etch
process for "tungsten plugs", "contact arrays", or tungsten vias, depending on
what terminology you prefer. For some reason, they could not be measured in-fab,
so I had a technician take a bunch of pictures of the vias from each process
split. Then I created height fields out of the images-- they all looked like
Devil's Tower.  Then I used povray to get "all" of the diameters, and spit out
some statistics as to X, Y, min, etc...  One of the coolest parts of the
analysis was I made some huge mistake which was caught by the (internal)
customer, and he pointed it out.  But I was able to correct the povray code and
re-run the whole simulation right in front of him, which I think only added to
the credibility of the whole operation.

2) Character Animation.  My 2nd level manager saw our CEO make a presentation in
Second Life and asked me to help him do one, too. It turned out this wasn't
entirely practical, but the request morphed into making an animation that
explained the "characterization" process for semiconductor process development.
I worked on it (90% on my own time) for over half a year. We presented it to a
project meeting. Years later I submitted it to a video contest ran by the
International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis.  I got 2nd place.
Here's ASM's listing of the video. If I'd gotten 1st place, it would have meant
a free (>$850)ticket to next year's conference.
100% of everything is povray: the people are blobs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgtXRQ8Py4U




"FNH" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> For myself, I used them to create
>
> Computer desktop background
> Posters
> Animations as part of advertisements
> Book covers
> Audiobook covers
> Handouts in an RPG session
>
> So what have you used them for? Have you managed to use one in your day job?

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