The photos of my hand-crafted wooden models

In case you haven't figured it out from the date link on the previous page, I did NOT carve those models from assorted hardwoods with my bare hands. They were rendered using the Macintosh version of the POVRAY program (but see my "More wooden models" page for some real wood ones). Povray is an amazing rendering program which can be adapted to do chemical structures. I started with a modeled aspartame structure (a set of x,y,z coordinates for each atom). Here is one of my .pov files:

// ==== Standard POV-Ray Includes ====
#include "colors.inc"	// Standard Color definitions
#include "textures.inc"	// Standard Texture definitions

// aspartame structure by Eric Walters
// Manually changed the sign of each z-coord because povray is LEFT-HANDED!...

background {color Cyan}

camera {
	location <0, 8, -20>
	look_at  <0, 0,   0>
}

sphere {
	<-1.323, 0.503, -0.918>, 1.4  // each atom is described by < x,y,z coordinates> 
                                      // and radius 
	texture { DMFDarkOak }
}

sphere {
	<-2.344,   0.405,   -1.016>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<-0.475,   -0.695,   -0.677>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	

sphere {
	<-1.379,   -1.941,   -0.637>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<0.415,   -0.687,   0.587>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<0.199,   -0.783,   -1.568>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<-2.354,   -1.905,   -1.722>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<-0.772,   -2.879,   -0.691>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<-1.940,   -1.974,   0.331>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<-0.043,   -0.681,   1.732>, 1.4
	texture { Rosewood }
}

sphere {
	<1.789,   -0.756,   0.350>, 1.4
	texture { DMFDarkOak }
}

sphere {
	<-2.204,   -2.778,   -2.757>, 1.4
	texture { Rosewood }
}

sphere {
	<-3.334,   -0.958,   -1.610>, 1.4
	texture { Rosewood }
}

sphere {
	<2.734,   -0.859,   1.504>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<2.087,   -0.905,   -0.618>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<3.810,   0.249,   1.460>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<3.369,   -2.253,   1.515>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<2.197,   -0.746,   2.479>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<4.417,   0.434,   0.082>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<3.357,   1.222,   1.772>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<4.619,   0.041,   2.202>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<4.467,   -2.524,   1.956>, 1.4
	texture { Rosewood }
}

sphere {
	<2.515,   -3.153,   0.975>, 1.4
	texture { Rosewood }
}

sphere {
	<3.928,   1.433,   -0.786>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<5.475,   -0.385,   -0.365>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<2.956,   -4.494,   0.903>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<4.480,   1.615,   -2.066>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<3.097,   2.090,   -0.468>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<6.032,   -0.210,   -1.645>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<5.876,   -1.176,   0.295>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<3.855,   -4.553,   0.243>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<2.126,   -5.085,   0.452>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<3.166,   -4.878,   1.932>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<5.536,   0.792,   -2.498>, 1.4
	texture { DMFWood3 }
	}

sphere {
	<4.085,   2.404,   -2.732>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<6.861,   -0.861,   -1.980>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere 
	<5.973,   0.930,   -3.504>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<-1.167,   1.126,   -0.152>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

sphere {
	<-0.993,   0.925,   -1.763>, 1.0
	texture { Yellow_Pine }
}

light_source { <-1, 1, -15> color White}

light_source { <-5, -5, -20> color Yellow}

light_source { <5, 5, -25> color White}

light_source { <20, 20, -20> color Yellow}

// An area light (creates soft shadows)
// WARNING: This special light can significantly slow down rendering times!
light_source
{
  0*x // light's position (translated below)
  color rgb 1.0  // light's color
  // <widthVector> <heightVector> nLightsWide mLightsHigh
  area_light
  <8, 0, 0> <0, 0, 8> // lights spread out across this distance (x * z)
  4, 4                // total number of lights in grid (4x*4z = 16 lights)
  adaptive 0          // 0,1,2,3... 
  jitter              // adds random softening of light
  translate <40, 80, -40>   // <x y z> position of light
}