news:3e93374f@news.povray.org...
>
> --------------( oo )--------------
>
> Wow! This seems really nice. Did I missed the first post?
> It looks like really a powerfull way to describe a complex surface.
> You have a website?

<snip>

I asked for some help with the underlying math in the Advanced Users forum,
and Tor Olav responded there with some very useful assistance. I had put up
a temporary web site to facilitate that discussion but I've taken it down
since then. It was a page about some very early alpha test "proof of
concept" code-- in other words, junk.

I've now finished patches.inc and I'm writing up a web page or two about its
usage. That should be done either today or tomorrow, and then I'll publish
the beta version. "Beta" in this case meaning everything works, it is
suitable for general use, but that I may yet change some things depending on
user feedback (like maybe the interface could be improved or maybe some
feature I've not thought of would be nice).

To whet your appetite: patches.inc provides the PatchWork macro, which
accepts a two dimensional array of points and generates a smooth mesh by
connecting the points with bicubic patches. The PatchGrid macro does the
same kind of thing with an array of floats by using those like height data
upon a fixed grid. I've found it easy to use both with data brought in from
an Excel spreadsheet and with data generated dynamically in the .pov file
itself.

In the iceberg.gif image (attached), the waves are interference patterns of
sine waves generated in Excel and rendered through PatchWork, and the
iceberg is a modified subset of these processed with PatchGrid (with
settings that deliberately force the seams between patches to become
visible).


--
Will Woodhull
Thornhenge, SW Oregon, USA
willl.at.thornhenge.net

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