Title: The groove

by Christoph Hormann

The design of this scene is fairly simple, no fancy loops, recursive macros etc.  The isosurface object is very useful for SCC purposes - although not so easy to control you can generate very complex geometries with very few code and furthermore it makes it possible to do quite extensive composition and fine tuning work within the limited scope of 256 characters.  

It renders moderately slow (about 2 hours on current single processor hardware with the competition options).  You can speed it up by reducing the isosurface accuracy, lowering the gradient compensation factor or removing the 'small scale structure' from the function.  The code as it is is suited for quite large render sizes - You should try rendering it in larger if you have the time, there is enough detail for a poster size render.

The competition options (-w800 -h600 +a0.01) smooth the contrasts quite a bit - the image IMO looks better with stronger contrasts.  You might also find it looks more interesting when rotated 90 degree left.