by geckzilla » Wed Jun 29, 2016 1:02 am
Chris Peterson wrote:geckzilla wrote:skyhound wrote:Am I the only one who looks at renderings of Jupiter like this and thinks, "Wrong, wrong, wrong?" (measures Jupiter on screen both ways) Jupiter is not a sphere. It is flattened at the poles to a numerically small, but distinguishable degree. When you consider the calculations that go into making an animation like this to appear accurate accurate, I'll never understand why so few take the time to get the oblateness right. It does make it easy to discern a simulation from the real thing though, at least for me.
You are not alone. This pet peeve doesn't pertain to this APOD at all, but yeah. I think to myself, come on, how hard is it to add a little flattening to that sphere you just created? Not hard at all. Here you go, have some planets I rendered a while back.
Try rendering with different viewing distances, and note the point where you can no longer tell that the planets are oblate.
I dunno, when viewed face on, it has to go pretty far. Down until the difference is less than a pixel and even then you could tell if you zoomed in close enough and added up the brightness of each pixel. I guess the higher (or lower) the inclination it's being viewed from, the less obvious it would be.
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![lotsajupiters.jpg (237.88 KiB) Viewed 1977 times lotsajupiters.jpg](./download/file.php?id=24416&t=1&sid=689745f52079f3cb28c34db88a3d9717)
[quote="Chris Peterson"][quote="geckzilla"][quote="skyhound"]Am I the only one who looks at renderings of Jupiter like this and thinks, "Wrong, wrong, wrong?" (measures Jupiter on screen both ways) Jupiter is not a sphere. It is flattened at the poles to a numerically small, but distinguishable degree. When you consider the calculations that go into making an animation like this to appear accurate accurate, I'll never understand why so few take the time to get the oblateness right. It does make it easy to discern a simulation from the real thing though, at least for me.[/quote]
You are not alone. This pet peeve doesn't pertain to this APOD at all, but yeah. I think to myself, come on, how hard is it to add a little flattening to that sphere you just created? Not hard at all. Here you go, have some planets I rendered a while back.[/quote]
Try rendering with different viewing distances, and note the point where you can no longer tell that the planets are oblate.[/quote]
I dunno, when viewed face on, it has to go pretty far. Down until the difference is less than a pixel and even then you could tell if you zoomed in close enough and added up the brightness of each pixel. I guess the higher (or lower) the inclination it's being viewed from, the less obvious it would be.