Remco made me aware of this astonishing  fact in p.b.a.  Here is a scene
file that makes it obvious.

A compact stack of 250 cylinders renders in 73 seconds.
A compact stack of 250 spheres renders in 6 seconds.



// Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer Scene Description File
// File: ?.pov
// Vers: 3.5
// Desc: Basic Scene Example
// Date: mm/dd/yy
// Auth: ?
//

#version 3.5;

#include "colors.inc"

global_settings {
  assumed_gamma 1.0
}

// ----------------------------------------

camera {
  location  <0.0, 0.5, -4.0>
  direction 1.5*z
  right     x*image_width/image_height
  look_at   <0.0, 0.0,  0.0>
}

sky_sphere {
  pigment {
    gradient y
    color_map {
      [0.0 rgb <0.6,0.7,1.0>]
      [0.7 rgb <0.0,0.1,0.8>]
    }
  }
}

light_source {
  <0, 0, 0>            // light's position (translated below)
  color rgb <1, 1, 1>  // light's color
  translate <-30, 30, -30>
}

// ----------------------------------------

plane {
  y, -1
  pigment { color rgb <0.7,0.5,0.3> }
}


blob{threshold 0.4

#declare n=0;
#while(n<250)
        sphere {0,.4,1 scale <1,0.1,1> translate 0.005*y*n-0.5*y }
        //cylinder {0,y,.4,1 scale <1,0.1,1> translate 0.005*y*n-0.5*y }
#declare n=n+1;
#end

  texture {
    pigment {
      radial
      frequency 8
      color_map {
        [0.00 color rgb <1.0,0.4,0.2> ]
        [0.33 color rgb <0.2,0.4,1.0> ]
        [0.66 color rgb <0.4,1.0,0.2> ]
        [1.00 color rgb <1.0,0.4,0.2> ]
      }
    }
    finish{
      specular 0.6
    }
  }
}

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