"Timothy R. Cook" wrote:

> Why can't you convert .pov file that just has primitives/csg
> to another format?

Just to illustrate how difficult it would be let's look at just some
of the many ways to describe a simple sphere object. Each of these
will accomplish the exact same thing yet the syntax used will vary -

//traditional
sphere{<1,1,1>,1 pigment{rgb 1}}

// Another
sphere{x+y+z,1 pigment{rgb 1}}

//Yet another
#declare a=x*1;
#declare b=y*1;
#declare c=z*1;
#declare d=1;
#declare My_Sphere = sphere{a+b+c,d}
object{My_Sphere pigment{rgb 1}}

//and one last one
#declare My_Vector = <1,1,1>;
sphere{My_Vector,1 pigment{rgb 1}}


Each of the above examples are perfectly valid and illustrate the
various types of POV-Ray scene file coding in practice today. A
pov2xxx conversion program would have to be able to recognize
each of those varations and decide what to do with them. That is
just the beginning. Then, since POV-Ray objects are mathematical
representations, they would have to be tesselated into a triangle
based or similar system, that most other 3D file formats use. Do
you start to see some of the practical problems involved ?

-- 
Ken Tyler

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