Finally I got my little ray-tracer to a stage where I think that releasing 
it to the public could make sense. Its web home is at
 
 http://www.povworld.org/raytracer/

You find there the (more or less well commented) source and a more detailed 
description of its features with some example pictures. You can also have a 
look at the API there. The ray-tracer is written in C++. It comes with some 
features that I would like to see in a future version of POV-Ray. 

Note that this is a realease for programmers only. The ray tracer does not 
come with a parser so the only way to create new scenes is by programming 
them. That is also why providing pre-compiled binaries does not make much 
sense.

If there is enough interest in discussing about the source code or further 
developping of it I can set up an appropriate communicating media. Maybe 
this project is interesting for you if you are not familiar with the POV 
3.5 code, you prefer object-oriented programming and you do not want to 
wait for POV-Ray 4 to come out of the planing stage.

Feature List:

# Object
    * Box
    * Sphere
    * Plane
    * ''fast'' Isosurface using polynom-extrapolation

# Bounding Boxes
    * Hierarchy

# CSG
    * Union
    * ''fast'' Merge and Intersection, speed in the same order as union
    * CSG copy by reference

# Pigment
    * Patterns
    * Pigment Maps
    * Camera-is-a-Pigment principle

# Texture
    * Phong
    * Transparency

# Media
    * absorbing, emitting, scattering
    * Density Mapping
    * ''fast'' Media using advanced integration technique and light cache   
      (experimental!)

# Light Source
    * Point Light

# Output
    * Write to PPM format file

As said you find some more info on 
http://www.povworld.org/raytracer/features/.

Happy programming!

- Micha Riser

-- 
objects.povworld.org - The POV-Ray Objects Collection
book.povworld.org    - The POV-Ray Book Project

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