Hi everyone,

I discovered a way to accurately depict minerals with POV-Ray. I found a 
demo version of a program called KrystalShaper 
(http://www.jcrystal.com/products/krystalshaper/) which allows one to 
view various crystal morphologies for different minerals. The demo 
version does not allow you to save or export, but you can view the 
Miller indices (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_index) of a 
crystal's faces, and determine the angle between them.

Using the angles acquired from the program, I made an intersection of 
planes to create the crystal. It would not be too difficult to randomize 
the result to make unique, natural-looking specimens.

The render itself is nothing amazing, but the possibilities represented 
by it are exciting!

Questions and comments, welcome as always!

Sam

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