Christopher James Huff wrote:
> In article <3EA### [at] matumde>, Achill <ach### [at] matumde> 
> wrote:
> 
> I think you need to learn more about how raytracing works. 

That is certainly true --- as it is with most things... :-)
(That's why I am posting to "newusers".)


> POV can not 
> take the "vector sum of all points on an object", because it doesn't 
> know all points on the object. Raytracing works by finding the 
> intersection point of rays with surfaces, the various shape types use a 
> wide variety of methods to do this, ranging from simple geometric 
> formulas to complex root-finding algorithms. You can't just add these 
> intersection finding algorithms together to get a new one.
 >
> Your idea seems to depend on having two sets of points and resulting in 
> a third set, POV does not have the first two sets and wouldn't be able 
> to do anything with the third (though there is a method for raytracing 
> point fields that might be useful with this, it is not currently 
> implemented in POV).

I saw on http://www.f-lohmueller.de/pov_tut/csg/povcsg1e.htm that CSG 
operations may be used with all shapes which have a clear defined 
"inside" and "outside", in particular with solids. My idea was that it 
should be possible to determine "inside" and "outside" of the sum (at 
least for the sum of solids) as well...?!?

I must admit, I do not know how povray "knows" to distiguish "inside" 
and "outside".



> Yes, a general rounding algorithm would be nice sometimes, but it is not 
> possible without completely changing the way POV handles shapes. If it 
> is ever added to POV, it will probably be a mesh processing feature.


I see that I will have to learn much more about povray and raytracing in 
general... :-)

Achill

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