Attached Link: http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/vis2006/show/slide3.dtl

They don't seem to mention what program was used for the rendering side, but I suspect it's one we're all familiar with here.  Besides it would be quite easy to do what they did with Bryce. (Import meshes, stage pieces, setup lighting, apply glass mats, tweak for appearance, set premium render with high TIR, click render and let it do its thing.)

3D Xplor Math is what they used to make the surfaces of these mathematical shapes.  Then saved/exported to a format usable by their incognito rendering tools.

3D Xplor Math appears to be on the Mac,
http://vmm.math.uci.edu/3D-XplorMath/

perhaps there's some hints as to what formats they export, probably .3ds and .obj (wavefront).

The image is fine, nothing extraordinary, either Mac based tool can render it, Carrara, Bryce, Vue, Lightwave, Cinema...

Now I'm curious :-)  .... which was it indeed?.

I think I read that Bryce was used as the rendering program w/3D Xplor Math. Plus DXF, POVray, LW can be used as formats...

If you guys look at our bryce gallery, the image and the author ar in there...

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1298076

Connie beat me to it, lol.....

Gallerystalkers sticks tongue out at conniekat and agentsmith haha. anyways, it's pretty cool! i like using maths for shapes.. it's how i passed highschool!

Quote - Connie beat me to it, lol.....

Yea, but.... I bet you would have done it without a typo!  ;)

Lol, still talking like a pirate, eh?

Yey!...  Suspicion confirmed. :D

The ripple effect on the "ground" surface is what gave it away. That and a lack of caustics.

Just seems funny that they win 1st place in the category, but never mention the render engine. But now the secret's out. :)

And that link was from some MSN headline article about science and imagery... So I'm sure it got quite a bit of traffic.

As I use a Mac I am pleased to discover this interesting free software.  I'll tinker with a few interesting shapes and try out a Bryce render myself :-)

I had a quick look at the 3D Xplor Math app, more in depth when time permits. I created a simple snail shell and exported as .OBJ file (6.7Mb), then imported this into Bryce 5.5 and rendered it. One shell complete, and a copy of the shell object sliced open to see the interior structure.

Worked well.

Very cool, sometimes its the Mac's that have the most fun looking toys...

Here's another, and final, object imported and rendered...

Quote - Lol, still talking like a pirate, eh?

LOL  I wish...
I just never quite got the hang of that 'keyboard' thing.  Espcially typing laying down with two fingers on a gummi-bear roll-up keyboard.
My typing is 'close enough for government work' ;)  Does that qualify for pirate-talk?

I remember that scene from a Star Trek movie where the Enterprise goes back in time to the 20th Century and Scotty tries to 'talk' to a Mac computer using the mouse as a microphone but has to resort to using the keyboard...