About the banner image

This image was created by Marc Levoy using the steps outlined below. If you have a 24-bit workstation, you can view losslessly compressed TIFF versions of any image on this page by clicking on the image. If the TIFF images look dark to you, see our note about gamma correction. Press here to return to the home page.

The redwood tree was hand-painted using Fractal Design Painter 2.0 and a Wacom pressure sensitive tablet. The tree was roughed out using a Sharp Pencil brush. Catchlights and bark details were drawn using the Single Pixel Scribbler brush.

The 3D Stanford "S" was modeled using SoftImage's Creative Environment v2.6.1. The scene was lit using two lights, one of which was a strong spotlight partially masked by a matte created from the painting of the redwood tree. The scene was then rendered with ray-traced shadows and antialiased using a Bartlett filter.

The blue background was created using Painter. The spotlight was added using the Apply Lighting effect. This is strictly a 2D effect.

The redwood tree, the rendered "S", and the blue background were composited together using Adobe Photoshop 2.0. The Magic Wand and Lasso tools were used to define antialiased mattes to control the compositing. Dark fringes were added around the "S" to heighten its readability, and the composite image was sharpened slightly to enhance details.

The frame and titling were generated using Painter. The background was created using the Apply Surface Texture effect. The letters were drawn, lit, and shadowed using the Fill, Apply Lighting, and Soften Focus effects, each masked by friskets created from the letters themselves. The entire frame was then lit again to simulate billboard lighting, and the composite Stanford logo was inserted.

The images contained on this page, including the three-dimensional Stanford "S", are copyrighted. Permission is hereby given to reuse the composite banner image (the big one at the top of this page) in its entirety as a representation of the Stanford Computer Graphics Laboratory. All other use requires the express permission of the laboratory.

Last update: June 21, 1994