TAPESTRY: The Art of Representation and Abstraction
The Tapestry, the Worm & the Teapot
This web site is intended to help people who are studying the complex world of 3D modeling and rendering. In this context, I invoke three images:
The Tapestry
Woven tapestries, such as the Bayeaux Tapestry, are visually stunning technologically demanding expressions of human creativity. Three-dimensional computer graphics is too. This website is about the threads of technology and design that come together to create three-dimensional environments and images using computer software and hardware, and about the expressive opportunities this pattern creates.
The Worm
The Worm Ouroboros is a mythical dragon-like creature when feeds upon it's own tail. One end feeds the other, and vice versa. Theoretical knowledge and experience are like that, where theory structures action and experience informs theory; brewing the fruits of action (experience) to distill new knowledge. Design is like that too, looping between alternative expressions of a solution, their analysis, and new alternatives.
The Teapot
![[Teapot Rendering]](teapot.jpg)
Once upon a time, one of the early pioneers of computer graphics, Martin Newell, realized that the teapot in his office presented a number of serious challenges to rendering and modeling. A standard teapot exhibits fairly complex curvature, some of which (on the spout) involves two directions of curvature at once. The body, spout and handle are "continuous", one part of the shape blending smoothly into the other, but where they join together there are sudden changes and discontinuities. They chose that humble teapot as the test case for their software projects, and it's been with us ever since, incorporated into movies, sometimes distorted into odd proportions, or covered with odd images, but recognizable nonetheless. Anyone studying 3D modeling and rendering should be familiar with the teapot.
Last updated: April, 2014
