Warp wrote:
> David Buck <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:
>> Now, you build a very simple but very expressive SDL grammar that allows 
>> you to express graphical modeling concepts very simply.  With this SDL, 
>> you can then define what "sphere" means but this time it's written in 
>> the SDL language, not in C.
> 
>   This is a good idea only if you want your renders to take at least
> 10 times longer than currently.

And I am willing to back down considerably from my extreme position :-). 
  My point is that it should be possible to define a sphere or a plane 
in the SDL.  If performance dictates that a primitive shape is more 
efficient, then move it down to the C level for efficiency purposes. 
But keep the ability for the SDL to define new shapes, new textures, new 
light sources, etc.  Some of the lesser used ones may even stay at the 
SDL level.

There are ways to do this nicely. One important aspect is to try things, 
measure the performance, and optimize accordingly.  You'd be surprised 
at how many things you think are bottlenecks really aren't.

BTW, I implemented a quick raytracer in Smalltalk and rendered a simple 
scene only 5 times slower than POVRay (and I didn't work too hard at 
optimizing it).

David

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