"Gilles Tran" <tra### [at] inapginrafr> wrote in message
news:4208c2bb@news.povray.org...

> news:4207ae97@news.povray.org...
>
> > Anyone agree, or see else of significance?
>
> If you zoom in on a primitive, or anything algorithmic, you don't really see
> additional, meaningful information: a procedural rust texture stops looking
> like rust at some point. In fact, it's always a little bit frustrating to
> work on large CG pictures because the resources (time, RAM, GHz) necessary
> to add detail at large sizes are always limited. CG pictures, after all, are
> based on models of the world, and are not the real thing.
>
> In a photograph, the details may be lost for a given range of lenses, but,
> up to molecular level, there's always the possibility to see more meaningful
> constructs with another type of lens (or technology).

And here's a demonstration of this idea:
http://www.tpd.tno.nl/Pics/DII/gigazoom/Delft2.htm

This is made by stitching together around 600 photos taken with a Nikon D1X and
one of Nikon's Nikkor AF VR 80-400mm f4.5-5.6 lenses.  And that's *only* a 400mm
lens... put something like a Nikkor 1000mm lens on and...

I guess the moral of this story is, in the real world when you zoom in, there's
more detail (and something that might not appear to have much detail from far
away has more detail the closer you get).  With a virtual 3D construct when you
zoom in, there's less detail (and something that might appear to have a lot of
detail from far away has less detail the closer you get).

Real world for win!

Lance.

thezone - thezone.firewave.com.au
thehandle - www.thehandle.com