Marvin wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> In previous version, 3.6, I have been using something like:
> 
> % povray +W640 +H480 +A0.3 -J0.0 +FN +O- source.pov
> 
> This was called from a CGI script, and the progressive PNG output went directly
> to the client browser.
> 
> However, in no way can I trick POVRAY 3.7beta25b to do this. It simply creates
> file "-.png", and even this file isn't populated progressively, but on the end
> of the rendering from the file -.pov-state.

There never was a guarantee that output would be progressive if you output a 
image to a piped file. What you do is actually not even supposed to work in 
3.6, and in reality it does not work right even in 3.6 as you are not 
receiving a valid PNG image if you display it intermittently. Due to the way 
SMP rendering works with blocks, the only way to output images is at the end.

However, I can indeed see that what you would like to do is very useful! So 
turning your report into a feature suggestion, I would say enabling a kind 
of raw output is what you could most easily use. Given you can set block 
size, your script would know it, you could then use that format of the 
preview blocks within your CGI script for processing and send them wherever 
you want. Of course, you end up with something more like a "web 2.0" 
application that way.

Actually implementation of the output would be relatively simple on the 
POV-Ray side, but I guess this feature will get low priority as long as 
there are major bugs to fix...

	Thorsten, POV-Team

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