> First, like the POV team had anounced, POV 3.5 will be a 3.1 with many
> new patches built-in as an official version. This would make it possible
> for us to use these patches without worrying if there would ever be any
> program that support them. I would love to see, for example, UVPOV part
> of the official pov-ray.

This, too, is my dream. I can't wait to see the day when I can throw my
Superpatch away, and free up a few megs. =) (God bless Ron Parker!)

> Then comes POV 4.0, which is really a new version. I think it is a good
> idea to build it in a very object oriented fashion. Maybe its good to
> keep it backward compatible, but the suggestion in the previous message
> concerning this matter is quite good. It would allow easy implementation
> of Inverse Kinematics and complex animations. It would be a whole new
> POV.

FK and IK and an addition of most of the things we don't have when compared
to the $$$ packages would be nice. Of course, if they can toss in a little
speed increase that would be cool too. I just don't think that OO is the way
to go. Things are fine as they are. I imagine 4.0 as a new interface, more
speed, and more stuff available kinda thing. I dream of it including the
things we would like to have, like FK and IK, and collision detection and
whatnot, but not as a change in the language, which I find quite good. I
figure a rewrite is too drastic. This should be saved only as a last resort,
for version 5.0 or something. The closer we are to ASM, the better, which is
why I believe it should be sped up with it. I'm probably just writing too
much now.

One idea I have is an extension project to POV, hopefully for 4.0. My idea
is to add "mini-shape-studios" (MSS?) which would allow for modelling to be
included in the official POV. Imagine a lathe-sor-prism shape-studio: you
could pop up a little grid, and click on the points to make a spline for a
lathe, or a prism. The ability to visualize these concepts would create
better images. In this case, all it is is lines, so it should be simple.
When the user is done, he clicks a 'create' button and it writes to the new,
official Ken-style of scripting. Another example would be a sphere
shape-studio: where you could scale the sphere just the way you want it.
This would also be simple. Just create 3 views of circles from X, Y, or Z.
As you can imagine, these would be little windows, and not clutter all of
the pov space, and, of course, one would have the option to close these
mini-studios, which would immediately free up the memory they're eating up.
This is just another one of those off-my-head ideas. Please comment.

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