In article <3b15fe70@news.povray.org> , "Nekar Xenos" 
<j-p### [at] citywalkcoza> wrote:

> Maybe this is a stupid question, but why doesn't Pov use real radiosity?

There is no "real" radiosity, only different ways to do the same thing.  In
fact the radiosity POV-Ray uses can be adapted to produce perfect results,
but this would require us to wait a billion years or more to see the final
image ...

> Will future versions have real radiosity as an option? It would be nice to
> have both methods available IMHO.  =)

No, it is pointless to have the other algorithm in a raytracer in almost all
cases because it likely reduces (still) image quality due to tessellation.
In fact both methods approximate their results, while one approximates the
surfaces and contribution, the method used by POV-Ray approximates the
contribution only but in a less precise way than in the other method does.

> Maybe the coding is too difficult, or copyrighted in a way that Pov couldn't
> use it?

No, neither is the problem.  It is simply that one method is more suitable
for a raytracer than the other method.  There are programs out there that do
a very good job applying the "other" radiosity algorithm without raytracing.
Look for links to renderers in the POV-Ray links collection.


    Thorsten

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