Open source optical lattice clock A recent question showed how Mathematica could be used to make a beautiful optical lattice clock image.  The image looks like this.



This challenge is to reproduce this image as closely as possible using as short code as possible using only easily available open source tools (and without just downloading the image or parts of it). 

Rules As it is not reasonable to ask for a pixel by pixel reproduction this is a popularity contest. However, please up-vote code that is a short (in the style of code-golf) and which produces an accurate and beautiful reproduction of the image.
POV-Ray, 512 characters
Here's my try. I didn't manage to replicate the lighting, so I've decided to keep the variation of highlight positions rather than to put the lights further away to keep the background brighter.
The area shadow is rather low-quality. I might as well turn it off completely (and save precious characters), but if someone is willing to donate some computing power and crank up the shadow quality and/or the dither quality, I'll gladly accept.
#include&quot;functions.inc&quot;       
camera{location&lt;-3,5,-6&gt;right x look_at 0 focal_point 0 aperture 1 blur_samples 9}  
#macro s(p)sphere{pi*p+y/3 1 pigment{rgb&lt;2,8,2&gt;/9}finish{phong .5 phong_size 5 specular 1 roughness .001}}#end
#macro l(p,c)light_source{p c/8 area_light 9*x,9*z,3,3}#end l(&lt;6,6,0&gt;,&lt;8,4,8&gt;)l(&lt;0,6,0&gt;,&lt;4,8,8&gt;)
isosurface{function{y/3+pow(cos(x)*cos(z),2)/2}contained_by{box{-9,100}}pigment{tiling 1 color_map{[.9 rgb 1][1 rgb 0]}scale .5/pi}}   
s(0)s(&lt;0,0,-1&gt;)s(&lt;-1,0,0&gt;)s(&lt;0,0,2&gt;)s(&lt;2,0,1&gt;)s(&lt;2,0,3&gt;)

Result:

ungolfed:
#version 3.7;
#include &quot;functions.inc&quot;                
global_settings{assumed_gamma 1} 
camera{
  location &lt;-3,5,-6&gt;  
  right x //set the aspect ratio
  look_at 0   
  focal_point 0 aperture 1 blur_samples 9
}  

#macro l(p,c) // position, color
  light_source{
    p c/8 
    area_light 9*x,9*z,3,3
  }
#end 
l(&lt;6,6,0&gt;,&lt;8,4,8&gt;)
l(&lt;0,6,0&gt;,&lt;4,8,8&gt;) 

isosurface{
  function{y/3+pow(cos(x)*cos(z),2)/2}
  contained_by{box{-9,100}}
  pigment{
    tiling 1
    color_map{[.9 rgb 1][1 rgb 0]}       
    scale .5/pi
  } 
}            
#macro s(p) //position
  sphere{
    pi*p+y/3 1
    pigment{rgb&lt;2,8,2&gt;/9}
    //phong for the wide highlights, specular for the small ones.
    finish{phong .5 phong_size 5 specular 1 roughness .001}
  }
#end   
s(0)
s(&lt;0,0,-1&gt;)
s(&lt;-1,0,0&gt;)                       
s(&lt;0,0,2&gt;)    
s(&lt;2,0,1&gt;) 
s(&lt;2,0,3&gt;)

P.S.: I've only counted the five line-breaks to round the character count to a perfectly round number.