Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Thesis Topic

My thesis topic revolves around the use of splat rendering to create visualizations of nebulae and galaxies.  I'm working in conjunction with Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, MD.  I'm using nebula S106 and the M51 (Whirlpool) galaxy as test cases for my procedure (see below).

S106
Whirlpool Galaxy

Over this past summer, I interned with STScI.  I helped develop a splat generation system that is currently in use now for a sequence of shots visualizing the Orion nebula.  Below are some work in progress images from my work this summer, and where they are at now.  At this point, the nebula is being rendered with roughly 8M splats.


Original Mesh with Texture
Render from Maya (1.5 M @ 10 hrs)
Render from STScI splat code (5M @ 54 sec)
Render from STScI splat code. Opaque splats inside, transparent layer on top. (8.15M @ ???)
Render from STScI splat code. Noise added. (8.15M @ 21 min)
Render from STScI splat code. Overhead view. (8.15M @ 7 min)
More detailed noise.  Glow layer above the opaque layer. (8.15M @ 21 min)

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