artwork by David Brinnen, posted with permission

We mentioned a glasshenge before, some time ago–this one, in fact–but we’ve never done a post. Please take note: the henge above is entirely created of pixels. No physical model of it exists, which eliminates the question nagging at the back of your naturally physics-calculating mind, “How did they get those bits to stay up?”

People often forget that Stonehenge’s stones aren’t just balanced so carefully that they’ve been able to stand on Salisbury Plain for millennia, but that they remain standing because they are much longer than we see and extend many feet into the ground. You’re all nodding sagely now and thinking, “Of course,” but if we hadn’t mentioned it, plenty of you would never have thought of it. It’s okay *wink wink* we’ll all pretend you were one of the ones who knew it all along.

One of the beauties of virtual Stonehenges is not having to worry about all that. Instead you’re worrying about the angles, quality, and colour of light, plus in this case, the peculiarities of glass and transparency. We don’t usually allow anything resembling product promotion on Clonehenge (only because no one has ever offered us money for it!) but the artist’s explanation of this piece, edited to add links, does contain brand names.

“The image was made using DAZ3D Stonehenge and Ruins* to demonstrate a new feature in the flagship 3D landscaping software Bryce 6.1. The feature is (HDRI/IBL) high dynamic range image based lighting. The lightprobe for the scene was made by this fellow, Horo (Bryce Demi-god) and all round hdr expert. DAZ3D have just launched a new version of Bryce, Bryce 7 pro, featured here.”

And he adds–and here we are completely charmed– “For Bryce 7 pro – I make clouds…” And gives this link. David Brinnen makes clouds. How cool is that?

Faithful readers know that we wish all virtual Stonehenges could be based on laser scans of the stones, but for one that isn’t, this one is pretty good. We like this glass Stonehenge and its lighting. Score: 7 druids. Should have been lower, we know. But it’s pretty.

Below you can see another virtual Glasshenge on the left and a real one, an original artwork complete with colours, to its right:

(Click on either to go to a page where you can see it larger.)

They may not be as astronomically useful, but for sheer visual effect even the ancients might have considered using glass. If they could see their way clear . . .

*A product of which we strongly approve!