Aim of the model
	Features of the model
	Shortcomings of the model
	Voyager Links
	Credits
	The Voyager Gallery
	Voyager Rendering Advice
	POV Source Code Updated: 6/6/00

This page presents my very own adaptation of the NASA/JPL Voyager spacecraft made specifically for the POVRay raytracer, and constructed entirely out of primitive objects (spheres, cylinders, boxes etc). Note that it is only available here in POVray format - I am unable to convert this to other formats like 3D Studio, DXF, or VRML, primarily because I can't get the Crossroads file converter to even open the darn thing (if anyone has any tips on this, let me know...!). That said, even if it could be converted to other formats I'd imagine that only the POV version would retain the special features that are designed specifically for POVusers to take advantage of (such as animation support for the scan platform).

I have made the source code available for download, but I ask that you please take note of and follow the distribution information on the Download page!

I set about the task of recreating Voyager for POVRay for two main reasons:

1. To make as accurate a model as possible for use in POVRay Space Art renderings. I believe that the Voyager model I present here is the most realistic POV model of Voyager available on the web - other attempts I have seen were sorely lacking in accuracy. I have been unable to locate any 3DS or DXF versions of Voyager, 'official' or otherwise. Even if I did though, they'd be limited in that they would not be suitable for animation in POV (see below), and they'd be constructed of ridiculous amounts of triangles if they were converted to POVray format.

2. To make as 'animation-friendly' a model as possible. The ultimate aim for this is to make it possible to reproduce using POVray something similar to the classic Voyager fly-by animations originally made by Jim Blinn for JPL/NASA back in the 1980's. However, I myself have much to learn about animating in POVray, and for now must be content with still images! That said, I think I've optimised the code for such a purpose - the scan platform on which the cameras are mounted is fully 'rotateable' in the x- and y-axes, allowing you to show Voyager's cameras tracking their targets as Voyager flies past them. In addition, Voyager itself can be rotated around the y-axis (that being the dish/body axis), just like in the NASA animations!

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The Voyager for POVRay model was created using the photographs and schematics of Voyager and its instruments that can be found on the NASA/JPL Voyager website at http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/voyager.html and on various other sites (a list of links is provided at the bottom of this page). No actual design blueprints were available (that would have made life too easy...!) - everything was planned 'by eye' with the aid of the rather good raytracer/VRML plug-in that comes as standard with the human brain and lots of graph paper! No modellers (Moray, POVlab, SPatch etc.) were used in the creation of this model.

The Voyager for POVray model includes:

• Attention to detail - in some cases (particularly on individual instruments) the model is accurate to the scale of inches! A few inaccuracies remain however - these are described below. Despite this, I think it's just about completely accurate at a distance, and at least 80% accurate when viewed at close range.
• Fully 'rotateable' Scan Platform (x and y axes) and Voyager body - from Version 1.1, these can now be varied using the clock parameter from within the POV scene file that uses the Voyager object. This means that the Scan Platform with the cameras and other instruments can potentially track the planets and satellites that Voyager is flying past in animations!
• Simple primitive object model - no complex triangle meshes here, just spheres, cylinders, boxes, prisms, and a couple of quadrics! That means each object can be textured appropriately (and it also parses faster than a triangle mesh). Voyager is made from 955 objects in total.

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Of course, I'd be lying if I said this model was perfect, but it's pretty damn close now... 8-) - there are a few minor flaws that I am aware of though (in order of magnitude):

• RTG Boom Struts: The Radioisotope Thermolelectric Generator (RTG) Boom support struts that connect the cylindrical RTG block to the body are not strictly accurate. None of the photos or schematics that I found viewed these from a good angle, and the best ones showed it to be a rather complex, asymmetrical affair. As such, I've done a best estimate but it does look pretty close to the real thing.
• Wide Angle Camera: The Wide Angle Camera (the shiny chrome thing on top of the Scan Platform) may not be truly accurate. I only found a side view of this on one of the Voyager websites, and I know it involves a cylindrical filter wheel somewhere. However, I couldn't really reconcile the side view schematic with the view of it in the photograph of Voyager that this model is largely based on, so I erred in favour of the photo. I may try and correct this if I find a decent view of it.
• No Thermal Blanketing: All space probes are covered with a layer of black thermal blanketing - this is not shown in the model here, since (a) it covers almost everything up, and (b) I couldn't find any decent photos with it included anyway.
• No detail on the Gold Disc: I didn't want to lumber this model with a separate imagemap of the cover of the gold disc on the front of Voyager, and I certainly didn't fancy etching out the individual carvings on it using cylindrical differences - so it's just a plain gold disc, I'm afraid...

[Back to the Voyager index]

The following Voyager resources are just a small part of what's available on the Internet supporting the Voyager mission. The links below contain info about the spacecraft itself (including schematics etc) and also images and science returned by the Voyagers so you can get some inspiration (and learn something about the Solar System too ;-)).

• The Voyager Mission (NASA ARC) - While it's not the actual Voyager home page, the NASA ARC site contains excellent supplementary information on the Voyager project including detailed hardware descriptions, and is where much of the information used to create my model was obtained from. It's a little more technical than the Voyager Home Page though, so be warned!

• The Voyager Project Home Page - This is the 'official', less technical Voyager home page, aimed more at the general public. It contains (among other things) the photograph on which much of this model was based, a clickable sketch of the spacecraft showing the instruments, and the contents of the famous Voyager Disc! You can also see a small sampling of the images returned by the two Voyagers there.

• The Solar System Simulator - Just about everything offered by Dave Seal at JPL is a godsend to space artists, but this particular portion of his site is especially useful. The Solar System Simulator allows you to 'reverse engineer' scenes involving Voyagers 1 and 2, Cassini, and Galileo to see what they saw at any time during their fly-bys (you can adjust the field-of-view too). It also gives you handy info such as distance to the target, angular diameter of target from the probe, and the phase angle - absolutely vital for fly-by planning ;). Dave also has a huge selection of planetary maps you can use in your renderings and lots of other titbits that you can access from his main site at http://samadhi.jpl.nasa.gov/, so be sure to stop off there!

• Jim Blinn's website [of sorts...] - Not so much a website as a collection of useful text files by the man that created the original Voyager animations! Just about all of the text (*.txt) files here are of some use to anyone thinking of making space animations and are well worth downloading - they contain plenty of great tips and handy techniques. Check out flyby.txt (a description of how the Jupiter/Saturn fly-by animations were created), animtrix.txt (what appears to be a LaTex file describing some useful tricks to use in animations to make life easier - the formatting's a pain though as the LaTex tags are preserved as text in a web browser), and chiting.txt (an oddly-titled file describing more animation tricks). The other text files are also very interesting from an image processing/raytracing perspective and are worth a trawl through, but don't bother looking at the html files there - almost all of them are 'under construction' (as of 1995!) and are largely empty.

• Voyager Mission to the Outer Planets - Online resources at PDS - Lots of useful links to info on the Voyager Project and the images returned by the probes. There's also a link to the PDS CD-ROM jukebox there for those of you who may want to look at the actual images returned by Voyager in their original format.

• NASA Planetary Photojournal - Not the most complete site in the world for images (these are only ones officially released to the press by NASA), but it's a good place to start. You can do searches by planet or by space probe (including the Voyagers, of course), and there are quite a few nice surprises in there too - among other things, you can see the images of the whole solar system that were taken by Voyager!

[Back to the Voyager index]

The Voyager for POVRay Source Code was written by Constantine Thomas and is available from http://www.evildrganymede.net/art/voyager/voyager.htm. Further details regarding distribution of this code can be found on the download page and should be observed.

Any comments on this code are welcome! As usual with the POV resources on my website, I would like to be informed of any images or animations (especially the latter!) that this model is used in, and would greatly appreciate a look at the results! This model is available for personal use only - you may not use this code for commercial projects.

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