Picogen is a rendering system for the creation and rendering of artificial terrain, based on ray tracing

Ray tracing (physics)

In physics, ray tracing is a method for calculating the path of waves or particles through a system with regions of varying propagation velocity, absorption characteristics, and reflecting surfaces. Under these circumstances, wavefronts may bend, change direction, or reflect off surfaces,...

. It is free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

.

Overview

While the primary purpose of picogen is to display realistic 3d terrain, both in terms of terrain formation and image plausibility, it also is a heightmap

Heightmap

In computer graphics, a heightmap or heightfield is a raster image used to store values, such as surface elevation data, for display in 3D computer graphics...

-creation tool , in which heightmaps are programmed

Computer program

A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...

 in a syntax reminiscent of LISP

Lisp

A lisp is a speech impediment, historically also known as sigmatism. Stereotypically, people with a lisp are unable to pronounce sibilants , and replace them with interdentals , though there are actually several kinds of lisp...

.

The shading

Shading

Shading refers to depicting depth perception in 3D models or illustrations by varying levels of darkness.-Drawing:Shading is a process used in drawing for depicting levels of darkness on paper by applying media more densely or with a darker shade for darker areas, and less densely or with a lighter...

 system is partially programmable .

Example Features

• Whitted-Style Ray Tracer
  Ray tracing (physics)
  In physics, ray tracing is a method for calculating the path of waves or particles through a system with regions of varying propagation velocity, absorption characteristics, and reflecting surfaces. Under these circumstances, wavefronts may bend, change direction, or reflect off surfaces,...
  
   for quick previews
• Rudimentary path tracer
  Path Tracing
  Path tracing is a computer graphics rendering technique that attempts to simulate the physical behaviour of light as closely as possible. It is a generalisation of conventional ray tracing, tracing rays from the virtual camera through several bounces on or through objects...
  
   for high quality results
• Partial implementation of Preetham's Sun-/Skylight Model
• Procedural Heightmaps, though before rendering they are tesselated

Frontends

Currently there is a frontend to picogen, called picogen-wx (based on wxWidgets

WxWidgets

wxWidgets is a widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with minimal or no code changes...

). It is encapsulated from picogen and thus communicates with it on command-line level. Picogen-wx provides several panels to design the different aspects of a landscape, e.g. the Sun/Sky- or the Terrain-Texture-Panel. Each panel has its own preview window, though each preview window can be reached from any other panel.

Landscapes can be loaded and saved through an own, simple Xml

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

-based file format, and images of arbitrary size (including antialiasing) can be saved.

External links

• Project Website
• http://picogen.deviantart.com/picogens DeviantArt
  DeviantArt
  deviantART is an online community showcasing various forms of user-made artwork. It was first launched on August 7, 2000 by Scott Jarkoff, Matthew Stephens, Angelo Sotira and others. deviantArt, Inc...
  
  -Group-Page]