> >   This render state file contains the raw floating-point image data that
is
> >   generated by POV, including filter and transmit.
>
>   A voice in my head says "postprocessing, postprocessing,
> postprocessing..." :P

Yeah, I think this intermediate file format offers a lot of possibilities.
POV-Ray is no longer simply writing an image to a file; it's now storing
information about the image that it can use for its own purposes.

One possibility, for instance, is the potential to reuse mosaic preview data
in the final trace. If it were stored somehow in this intermediate file, it
could be read from during the final trace or during a continued trace. (This
may have difficulties with the "block" storage format, I dunno).

You could take a render state file from a completed render and produce a new
image from it with some changes - perform anti-aliasing on an image that
wasn't anti-aliased, change the brightness (and not suffer from clipping in
the original output because floating points are available), and if
anti-aliased pixel colors were separated from pre-anti-aliased colors, you
could double the horizontal and vertical resolution (by rendering the areas
"between" pixels). You could rerender certain areas of the image while
keeping old areas.

I guess a lot of these ideas will end up being not worth the effort, but I'm
excited about the possibilities. =)

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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