<fr### [at] computermuseumfh-kielde> wrote:

> my scene *is* complete: it does render, resulting in a thin "line" with
> color <63,63,63>/255, an approximation of <.25,.25,.25>. As sascha wrote,
> my light source is "ambient 1". Not only the border is anti-aliased: try
> +R9 and wait many minutes for the pure black background to be rendered.
> Of course there is no visible effect on this background, but time is
> consumed depending on +R. If this time is not being used for anti-
> aliasing: what else does POV-Ray do during this time and why does it
> depend on +R?

I am sure there is a logical explanation for what you are observing, but
checking it to the detail you are looking for, sorry, I don't have that much
free time at the moment.  Something might not be worded too well in the
documentation, and I am sure that the paragraph 5.2.6.4 you referred in your
initial post talks about anti-aliasing method one most of the time.  A few
things definitely were changes over time in the implementation of
anti-aliasing to cover a few features added later (in particular the alpha
channel), and this did require a few small changes in the source code.

> Still confused ...

You are suffering from the "documentation is specification" problem.  The
POV-Ray user documentation is by no means a specification how POV-Ray has to
behave, but it simply outlines how POV-Ray did behave at the time that
section of documentation was written.  Sometimes this does not perfectly
match a decade later ... but note that I am not saying this is the case
here, only that it might be the case here.  You and everybody else are
invited to investigate this by looking at the source code.  Then we can
improve the documentation based on your findings!

Or, in short and German:
Bitte nicht jedes Wort der Dokumentation auf die Goldwaage legen! ;-)

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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