Stephen Klebs <skl### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> I feel much the same. What I've always loved about POV-Ray, and I've been
> addicted for a long time, is that you DON'T know exactly what you're going to
> get. Every render is a bit of a surprise and a discovery and the only modelling
> tool you really have is your imagination and what you envision in your head. It
> reminds me of what photography was like in the pre-digital age. You fool around
> with light-meter readings, and estimate distance, and dial in what you calculate
> will be the right f-stops and press a little button. Alt-G. But you never really
> know what the picture looks like until you get it into the darkroom and wait a
> while and gradually watch it develop bit by bit. At no point in Blender or
> Cinema 4D or any modern, real-time renderer do you get that same moment of wow.
> 
> Little off topic. Sorry. But I always wanted to say that. In appreciation and
> encouragement of those who still keep this old, somewhat antiquated ship afloat.
> 

It isn't really OT, what better way to figure out what to promote about the
current iteration of Pov than to discover not only what people like about
it, but who those people are and why they feel as they do?

One of the great things about Pov is that it forces you to utilize
visualization techniques, which improves your spatial skills and overall
mental proficiency in imagining complex things. This translates very well
into software development skills, as I will explain later.

An exercise I taught my wife and 6yo son which I have found to be very
effective, is to imagine a V8 engine in your mind, as a transparent
assembly, then run it, imagining each part operating properly at the same
time while rotating it around mentally and pulling pieces away, changing
the color, texture and transparency levels the entire time. You can even
cause it to fail in a number of ways.

You can then extend the idea to even more complex machines. A good place to
start is with a 2 stroke engine and work your way up to successively more
complex devices.

Envisioning chemical reactions down to the bonds/electron shell/valency
interactions can be very effective as well, which then builds into the
ability to visualize mathematical expressions as surfaces and volumes.

This technique is relaxing and really develops many skills such as thinking
along multiple, even contradictory, lines simultaneously. It isn't hard and
can be learned fairly easily.

A huge roadblock people unwittingly foist upon themselves is falling prey
to thinking linearly in words and speech, instead of multidimensional
images. This gets you into the habit of self constraint in mental
processing.

That constraint is also what stops people from reading a page or paragraph
at once, as instead they read to themselves in their mind. Your eyes
capture the page at once, and if you train yourself you can assimilate the
information at that same rate.

Most of the work I do with software is handled as a visualization exercise
and a background process, as I spend time doing other things or sitting
there with a bowl of fine Virginia flake tobacco, letting my mind process
all of the algorithmic interactions. Once that is all wrapped up, I spend a
few hours coding, and I am done. It is basically hours or days of quiet
contemplation followed by moments of frenzied typing. ;-)

This technique of visualization has enabled me to develop the reputation at
work for writing fully formed software with few to zero bugs, and in most
circumstances to debug legacy code without running it, once I memorize the
code base.

I wasn't kidding when I credited Pov and the Dev team for my career. While
my memory has always been very close to eidetic (but alas, I age...), I
doubt my mind would function as it does now without the influence Pov has
imparted to me, thus granting the ability to visualize code interaction as
stated. Cheers to all, and my undying thanks.

Perhaps this post will be of benefit to those who are considering a career
to which such modes of thinking would be advantageous. Give it a try, you
will likely surprise yourself with what you can do in short time.

Now this really IS off topic lol!

Ian

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