Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

Another example of a colegues work now printed up about 6x3m and stuck to the office wall

AutoCAD - Drawings

Inventor - model

3dstudio - detail

Vray - materials and Render

Photoshop - whatever he does, apparently, paint.net isnt good enough

[#2]

Cool wallpaper!

The seawater's surface strikes me as a bit like asfalt or oil, but that's just my opinion.

Out of curiosity, how long did it take him to make that picture?

[#3]

Interesting commet Neil.... I was going to say exactly the opposite!

THe sea surface is absolutely gorgeous and realistic. If anything, the underwater is not that realistic, because you wouldn't see that deep at sea (the structure must be around 50m underwater right?

I attach a couple of images to make my point:

[#4]

Lol, point taken

In honesty, there were only a few spots on the sea's surface texture that looked a bit too "rough".

That's what spurred my comment, but your second photograph is really great for comparing.

It's still a cool wallpaper.

[#5]

about 30 hours, to compile it alltogether...  the sea was was created using dreamscape, which is very good for movies, skip ahead to about 2 mins in this vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU3TY5s2OR8

also, try a youtube search for dreamscape and sea, there is some very cool stuff there

[#6]

the actual wall, my camera doesnt do it justice and i have to stand in the back of the lift to get it in