On Thu, 24 Apr 2003 09:53:38 +0200, Achill <ach### [at] matumde> wrote:
> I do not know of a concrete "practical usage" either. My main idea was 
> to visualize the mathematical defintion of the vector sum (also known as 
> Minkowski sum, see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MinkowskiSum.html) of 
> two arbitrary sets.

Using this mathematical name from begining of this thread could help. I wonder
why you prefered to deliver some spaghetti-like explanation without this direct
link :-)

> Besides I think this would give some nice effects. For example a general 
> "rounding" by adding a sphere.

As for adding sphere into objects there is another solution/workaround (but not
perfect). You can look into my 'rounded' extension to isocsg library
http://www-public.tu-bs.de:8080/~y0013390/pov/ic/
If you define some object with rounded version of macros and this object is not
very complicated you can then use threshold to achive object almost identical to
adding sphere (http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.images/23003/).

I imagine you could write macro to do similiar operation for meshes but it is
obiously harder task than using already made macros from isocsg library. But
isosurfaces are usually (always ?) slower than meshes.

Except adding sphere, is there any other 3D application where you can add two
any objects?

> > but the only solution I can imagine is script based solution. First make some
> > smart macro to achive array with grid of points of result based on two input
> > patterns/objects/arrays. Then turn it into density file and render as
> > media/isosurface.
>
> I am not familiar with "povray's insides".

If you are talking about using POV-Ray SDL (scene description language) things
like macro, pattern, array or object are not "povray's insides". Otherwise I
hardly see what can be "povray's outsides" ;-)

ABX

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