Hi again,

Nieminen Juha wrote:

> What are the advantages of NURBS (or should I say NURBSes?) over bicubic
pathces?

I did not know that there are bicubic patches. I read then the documentation
of the current
PovRay version. There is mentioned:

"Like triangles, the bicubic patch is not meant to be generated by hand. These
shapes should be created by a special utility. You may be able to acquire
utilities to generate these shapes from the same source from which you
obtained POV-Ray."

My next step was to search for such a utility on the PovRay homepage. I just
found the program
breeze designer, which seems that there is no further development since 1996.

Are there other tools or programs wich support the possibility to export
bicubic patches into
PovRay format?

Nieminen, You asked for the advantages of NURBS. I do not know the maths but
there have to be a reason,
that proffessional programs like Maya, Houdini and others support NURBS. (This
might not be
the best argumentation, but it supports a little bit that NURBS have
advantages against bicubic patches.

Greetings, Felix

Post a reply to this message