Hi:

This is my first posting to this forum.
I've seen a few decent attempts to render the moon, some better than others,
so I thought I'd add my twopence worth and share my solution to the problem
of photo-realistic lunar rendering.

It was the simplest solution I could arrive at after several attempts at using
bump maps, spherical iso-surfaces and height fields.

Example renderings:
http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/images/Southern-Lunar-Limb-Mountains-24000-mi-Zoom-5x.jpg
and
http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/lunex-examples-and-source-code/images/Tranquility-Base-w-Pointer.
jpg
and
http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/lunex-examples-and-source-code/images/M-Orientale-Byrgius-Grimald
i-O-Procellarum.jpg

Anyone who wishes to check it out can experiment with the code.
All information on the LUNEX program, entire source code and all
required texture maps are freely available at:

http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/

All the HD lunar renderings at the site below were produced by a modified
version of LUNEX.

http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunar-hemispheric-phase-explorers-hd/

I would welcome any constructive suggestions and opinions on the package
since it's my first major POV-Ray project and would like to see other peoples
POV-Ray lunar rendering solutions.


Jay
http://www.PHPScienceLabs.US

Post a reply to this message

"JayTan" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Hi:
>
> This is my first posting to this forum.
> I've seen a few decent attempts to render the moon, some better than others,
> so I thought I'd add my twopence worth and share my solution to the problem
> of photo-realistic lunar rendering.
>
> It was the simplest solution I could arrive at after several attempts at using
> bump maps, spherical iso-surfaces and height fields.
>
> Example renderings:
>
http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/images/Southern-Lunar-Limb-Mountains-24000-mi-Zoom-5x.jpg
> and
>
http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/lunex-examples-and-source-code/images/Tranquility-Base-w-Pointe
r.
> jpg
> and
>
http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/lunex-examples-and-source-code/images/M-Orientale-Byrgius-Grima
ld
> i-O-Procellarum.jpg
>
> Anyone who wishes to check it out can experiment with the code.
> All information on the LUNEX program, entire source code and all
> required texture maps are freely available at:
>
> http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/
>
> All the HD lunar renderings at the site below were produced by a modified
> version of LUNEX.
>
> http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunar-hemispheric-phase-explorers-hd/
>
> I would welcome any constructive suggestions and opinions on the package
> since it's my first major POV-Ray project and would like to see other peoples
> POV-Ray lunar rendering solutions.
>
>
> Jay
> http://www.PHPScienceLabs.US

 Very interesting! Great images! I quick scanned the code and was wondering
where you got moon maps. I did something similar for Mars awhile back. But no
photo-realistic detailed. The maps I used where around 4096 by 2048 I think.
There where really two maps I used topology and color maps of the same size.
 Spherical iso-surfaces always took TIME to render I dropped them. But then with
those small image maps there was no reason to try photo-realism. You've made me
want to go back and see just what Mars maps I can get now. Thank You!
Have Fun!

Post a reply to this message

in news:web.62d7ebc244f51f4a678813e8ff26edec@news.povray.org JayTan wrote:

> render the moon

That looks very good.

ingo

-- 
https://ingoogni.nl

Post a reply to this message

"JayTan" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Hi:
>
> This is my first posting to this forum.
> I've seen a few decent attempts to render the moon, some better than others,
> so I thought I'd add my twopence worth and share my solution to the problem
> of photo-realistic lunar rendering.
>
> It was the simplest solution I could arrive at after several attempts at using
> bump maps, spherical iso-surfaces and height fields.
>
> Example renderings:
>
http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/images/Southern-Lunar-Limb-Mountains-24000-mi-Zoom-5x.jpg
> and
>
http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/lunex-examples-and-source-code/images/Tranquility-Base-w-Pointe
r.
> jpg
> and
>
http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/lunex-examples-and-source-code/images/M-Orientale-Byrgius-Grima
ld
> i-O-Procellarum.jpg
>
> Anyone who wishes to check it out can experiment with the code.
> All information on the LUNEX program, entire source code and all
> required texture maps are freely available at:
>
> http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunex-for-pov-ray/
>
> All the HD lunar renderings at the site below were produced by a modified
> version of LUNEX.
>
> http://phpsciencelabs.us/lunar-base/lunar-hemispheric-phase-explorers-hd/
>
> I would welcome any constructive suggestions and opinions on the package
> since it's my first major POV-Ray project and would like to see other peoples
> POV-Ray lunar rendering solutions.
>
>
> Jay
> http://www.PHPScienceLabs.US

Hi, I just looked at pictures, this is thrilling ! Have you tried lowering the
brilliance finish parameter slightly below 1.0 so that it more closely matches
the high (oren nayar type) sigma of lunar rocky surface? ambient should be 0 and
it also looks to me like diffuse reflectivity could be very slightly lowered to
keep corresponding contrast once brilliance is tweaked (specular seems spot-on
though !)(if using latest POV, maybe even just using albedo keyword would be
enough?).

Post a reply to this message

"Leroy" <whe### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> "JayTan" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> > Hi:
> >

>  Very interesting! Great images! I quick scanned the code and was wondering
> where you got moon maps. I did something similar for Mars awhile back. But no
> photo-realistic detailed. The maps I used where around 4096 by 2048 I think.
> There where really two maps I used topology and color maps of the same size.
>  Spherical iso-surfaces always took TIME to render I dropped them. But then with
> those small image maps there was no reason to try photo-realism. You've made me
> want to go back and see just what Mars maps I can get now. Thank You!
> Have Fun!


Thanks, Leroy!

I tried to make the LUNEX script simple to use so users wouldn't have to write
much code, just change a few numbers.

Mastering the spherical iso-surface with a height field was a nightmare at first
and for the entire moon and took forever to run a large rendering.  That was
half a year ago when I had a single 2.7 GHz CPU system with only 8 gigs of RAM.
It tooks hours to get a nice full-screen rendering when I first started.

Fortunately, I recently upgraded to a fast 6-core high-end graphics system with
lots of RAM and can now render images in a reasonable time frame.  Pictures that
used to take hours to render six months ago, can now render in a few minutes.
Big improvement.

I got many of my lunar texture maps from:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4720

Here's a nice map for Jupiter too:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a012000/a012021/

I've also been wanting to do a similar program for Mars but can't yet find any
Mars maps comparable to the quality of the lunar texture maps.

Post a reply to this message

ingo <ing### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> in news:web.62d7ebc244f51f4a678813e8ff26edec@news.povray.org JayTan wrote:
>
> > render the moon
>
> That looks very good.
>
> ingo
>
> --
> https://ingoogni.nl



Thanks.  I've still got lots to learn about POV-Ray, but I'm getting a little
better every day.

Post a reply to this message

"Mr" <m******r******at_hotmail_dot_fr> wrote:
> "JayTan" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> > Hi:

> >
> > Jay
> > http://www.PHPScienceLabs.US
>
> Hi, I just looked at pictures, this is thrilling ! Have you tried lowering the
> brilliance finish parameter slightly below 1.0 so that it more closely matches
> the high (oren nayar type) sigma of lunar rocky surface? ambient should be 0 and
> it also looks to me like diffuse reflectivity could be very slightly lowered to
> keep corresponding contrast once brilliance is tweaked (specular seems spot-on
> though !)(if using latest POV, maybe even just using albedo keyword would be
> enough?).


Glad you're thrilled!   LOL

I was thrilled when I finally got the spherical isosurface to work!  Took weeks
of experimenting.  POV-Ray has a steep learning curve!

Actually, I just looked at lots of actual NASA pictures and adjusted the
settings by eye as close as I could to match the rendering to the shades of the
NASA reference pictures.

The LUNEX program has some ability to fine-tune the image brightness, contrast
ambience to allow for a little flexibility when needed.

I'm still a novice at using POV-Ray, so I'm still learning to use some of the
features you mentioned.  Hopefully, I'll get better.  I wasn't aware of the
'albedo' keyword, I'll have to check that out too.  Most of the keywords are
still mysterious to me.

I've also noticed that on different monitor displays, the colors and contrast
vary a great deal, so what looks perfect on one monitor may not look so perfect
on another right next to it.  It's very hard to make a rendering just perfect
when monitors vary so much in the way they display colors.

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