POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.general : Etymology of bozo : Re: Etymology of bozo Server Time
30 Jul 2024 14:17:55 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Etymology of bozo  
From: David Buck
Date: 24 Apr 2009 11:23:01
Message: <49f1d955@news.povray.org>
Thomas de Groot wrote:
> "David Buck" <dav### [at] simberoncom> schreef in bericht 
> news:49efbe17$1@news.povray.org...
>> It's lucky that I still monitor this group :-)
>>
>> Bozo was indeed in DKBTrace.  In fact, it was one of the first procedural 
>> textures to be implemented in DKBTrace.  I wasn't, however, responsible 
>> for the name.  It came from a technical paper presented at SIGGRAPH '84 by 
>> Ken Perlin called "An Image Synthesizer".  He showed a torus with a bozo 
>> texture on it.
>>
>> That paper served as a huge inspiration for me to create the original 
>> textures in DKBTrace and later POVRay.
>>
>> http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=325247
>> http://luthuli.cs.uiuc.edu/~daf/courses/ComputerGraphics/Week8/Shading.pdf
>>
> 
> Nice, David. This little piece of info should go into some kind of 
> Historical Repository for POV-Ray, under the chapter "Foundations & Sources" 
> :-)
> 
> Thomas 
> 
> 

I'm not disagreeing, but this is only one small, almost insignificant 
piece in the development of POVRay.  It would seem out of place if it 
was the only little tidbit there.

If I thought there was a market for it, I could write a book on the 
origins of DKBTrace and POVRay to cover little things like that.  For 
example,

	- the original inspiration for DKBTrace
	- using calculus for quadric surfaces
	- the pesky black speckle problem
	- the pain of CSG
	- solid textures and where they came from
	- refraction and how to get it wrong
	- calming down the waves pattern
	- layered textures
	- building the roman towers
	- early images
	- introducing spheres
	- Phong specular highlights
	- the transition from DKBTrace to POVRay
	- early work on POVRay
	- version control tools - ZIP, ZModem and 2400 baud modems
	- POVRay 1.0 at SIGGRAPH '92

Maybe I'll toss around the idea.  I already have a science fiction book 
I've submitted to a publisher.  This could be a fun book to write. 
Would there be interest in a book like this?

David Buck


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