TITLE: Fireplug
NAME: Dave Merchant
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: kosh@nesys.com
WEBPAGE: www.nesys.com
TOPIC: Landmarks
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: fireplug.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    povray 3.1a Watcom

TOOLS USED: 
    Photoshop for JPEG conversion and image map creation

RENDER TIME: 
    27 hour 49 min 57 secs at AA 0.1

HARDWARE USED: 
    P200, 64 mb RAM, w98

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


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                                  Landmarks

Notable points on the land.  Anything natural or artificial that is visible
from afar or otherwise stands out.  The Seven Wonders of the World, the
Matterhorn, Stonehenge, Victoria Falls, great buildings, great trees,
***that blue fireplug at the corner***. From Ayers Rock to the Eiffel Tower,
from the Grand Canyon to the Suez Canal, from the town square of
Smalltown USA to a crumbling Buddhist Temple in the midst of a jungle.
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This blue fireplug at the corner, along with the flying saucer behind it,
is a landmark for travelers along US Route 20 in Ashtabula, Ohio.

For us, it also a landmark because it is across the street from our
favorite restaurant.

The fire plug, or fire hydrant, is a 4-1/2" clear opening equivalent Meyer,
made in Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1967. The pale blue and white color scheme
is the same now as it was in the time period of this scene. Ashtabula uses
at least 4 designs of hydrants, with this one being the most modern.

The saucer was built in 1966. Although it has been closed since the
mid-1980's, it is in remarkably good condition, with most of the light
bulbs around the rim still intact, and windows unbroken. The pumps are
gone, but the circular concrete pads remain. The signs are still there.
The site is apparently being protected by the Ashtabula Landmarks Commission.

Photographs of the saucer have been published several times, an example
being the book "Pump And Circumstance - Glory Days Of The Gas Station".

This scene shows the gas station in its prime, in the early evening just
after a heavy rainstorm. The chase lights have been turned on, and reflect
off the puddles in the pavement.

The gas prices posted are correct, as they were in the 60's, before
the oil embargoes. Of course wages were much lower then too - I bought a
brand new Sunbeam Tiger in 1966 for $4500!

The design of the building is rather clever, as it is located on a small
triangular corner lot, where space is precious. The area under the saucer
is over 2100 square feet, while the building base footprint is only about
100 square feet. The saucer provides rain protection, the heating unit,
and storage, while the base contains an office, 2 restrooms, and further
storage area. Similarly, the pumps are mounted close together, on raised
bases, and angled for access to the hoses.

The compact design became obsolete when gas stations became mini-supermarkets.

The site is in a residential neighborhood, of mostly Victorian era houses.
A very tall chain link fence separates the gas station from the residences.
The GAS-N-GO signs on the fence were made of wood.



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


I measured and photographed the fireplug, building and site as they now stand,
and referred to the above mentioned book for the appearance when open.

Everything is CSG. The asphalt lot is a shallow random height field,
which provides natural depressions for puddles. I flooded the streets
to get some nice reflections. The water is a standard POV glass.

The wire fence uses 2 transparent step function gradients rotated +45 and
-45 degrees.

The sunset was created by messing around with the POV sky includes.
It started as a replica of a yellowish sunset I photographed recently under
similar post-storm conditions, but gradually changed into this version.
I tried some more intense versions of the sunset, but these distracted
attention from the main subject.

I had planned to use the C generated trees that I had developed last year,
but when I placed just 4 of them behind the fence, the object count got to
about 35000, and POV took over 30 minutes before it started to render.
Instead, I rendered several verions of the trees onto a black background,
and used these as transparent image maps on a thin box behind the fence,
to get a vine effect.

There should be approximately twice as many chase lights around the rim
as shown here. I reduced the number for practical rendering time reasons,
it still takes over a day due to all the light sources. The chase lights
are at 3 different intensities, as they would be with a short exposure time.

I had planned to put a car and some more details in the scene,
but ran out of time, due to summer and work stuff.

The picture started going wierd on me, so I decided to let it go that way.


