> Is there a way in POV-Ray to make projections from a point? Maybe it's
> possible to design something that does this manually ...

What you're describing is what POV-Ray is doing. You define an array of
lights in arealights. It begins with the first four in the corners: if all
are shadowed, the pixel is considered in shadow. The adaptive step sets a
minimum limit of corners to check (note that adaptive 1 will check 9 points:
four in the corners, then every between the corners). Look it up in the
documentation, I'm a little lazy to write it all out. :-P

Basically, you can use an enormous array of lights, and POV-Ray will only
use the amount needed until it calculates to be certain that a given
threshold of accuracy is reached. Still, it slows down the rendering
process, as this arealight will be used for the entire scene.

Note though that with arealights, only the shadows will receive softening,
specular highlights are still treated like from a pointlight.

Regards,
Tim

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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