First-Ever 3D Simulation from Inside a Tube (Video)

The image comes from surf photographer 3D image innovator Robbie Crawford. It shows a virtual rendering of a tube. Basically, according to Crawford, it’s “a photorealistic render of a single frame from a physics based fluid simulation. This is a single 3D frame from a full physics based fluid simulation of a breaking wave."

In layman’s terms: It’s a tube, which, through some technological sorcery, you can move around, from the back, front, both sides, and see from all angles.

For more heady details on what exactly it is, here’s Crawford again:

“I have never seen anyone do it the way I do it. The closest thing are the physics engines used to figure out wave pools. Imagine that combined with basically Pixar animation.

“There was no info when I started so it was from scratch not even knowing if it was possible really. It took me years of experimenting before I finally got decent results. Baking the physics takes a day, so it was literally make a lil tweak and wait a day and see if results showed improvement.

“Then doing that over and over again until finally I got closer to the results I was trying to achieve.”

Presumably, with something like a VR headset, you could toss up one of these images, and get (virtually) barreled without leaving your couch. Brave new world.