Newave was originally used as a demo program on the SGI IrisGL machine. Erik Larsen in turn ported the code over and in the process made improvements such as adding environmental mapping, texture mapping, antialiasing, and a better wave propagation algorithm.

Newave was one of the first OpenGL programs I studied. I have since updated the program to add a damping field so that the waves will eventually die down. This created some interesting rippling and interference patterns as shown below. In addition, I added two environmental maps depicting an Eucalyptus Grove and the Grace Cathedral along with some new geometric shapes.