>Chris B  on date 09/11/2009 17:19 wrote:
> 
> "Dudo" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
> news:web.4af8133e717d7fb2130ab9690@news.povray.org...
>> I'd like to ask, if it is possible to be using the POVRAY also for 
>> rendering 2D
>> pictures, such like 2D charts and color maps.
> 
> As already mentioned the answer is Yes. It's possible!
> I'd recommend thinking carefully before doing that though.
> 
>> Could you give me some
>> recommendation, if the POVRAY is useful for such the purpose
> 
> It depends what sort of charts and pictures you wish to create and 
> whether you plan to use POV-Ray for anything else. If you're planning to 
> generate 3D images and want to incorporate the same objects into some 
> sort of 2D representations, and if you are already planning to learn (or 
> already know) POV-Ray, then it may be appropriate to use it for 2D 
> images. Some folk have used it in the past with high ambient levels to 
> create cartoon-like effects. I'm currently doing some 2D style elevation 
> maps of the Earth using an Orthographic camera, with only ambient 
> lighting and with a color map to give different elevations different 
> colors, but then I'm also planning to use the same POV-Ray objects for 
> separate 3D representations.
> 
>> o if there exists an alternative program for 2D which you know..
> 
> There are lots of 2D graphics programs available that are very easy to 
> learn. There are different types of application, with each type of 
> application being best suited to a particular type of use. There are 
> free examples of most of those types of application.  OpenOffice 
> incorporates two applications that may be of particular interest to you 
> for generating 2D (or fake 3D) charts:
> 
> OpenOffice Draw is what's known as a vector graphics application that 
> enables you to draw boxes, lines, circles and randomly shaped 2D objects 
> with the mouse and to add text with the keyboard. You can add shading to 
> each object and 3D effects, such as shadows to objects text. This is a 
> free equivalent to commercial presentation packages such as Freelance 
> Graphics and Microsoft PowerPoint and enables you to do multi-slide 
> presentations with some animation and transitional effects.
> 
> OpenOffice Calc is a spreadsheet, mainly for doing calculations, but 
> also has a 2D charting function so that you can plot graphs of data held 
> in the spreadsheet or calculated using mathematical formulae. This makes 
> it very easy to make bar charts, pie charts, line charts and other 2D 
> representations of data. You can also very easily switch between 
> different representations if you change your mind. Commercial 
> equivalents are Lotus 123 and MS Excel. You can cut and paste charts 
> from any of these into other 2D graphics software such as OpenOffice 
> Draw, enabling you to use the best features from each application.
> 
> Two other free 2D applications you might find handy (depending on 
> exactly what you want to do) are Gimp (for photo editing) and Inkscape 
> for 2D Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) editing.  Inkscape falls into a 
> similar category to OpenOffice Draw, but works with SVG files which are 
> freely editable text files (a bit like POV-Ray scene files in concept). 
> There are quite a lot of free SVG graphics and charts already available 
> on the Internet that may avoid you having to start from scratch.
> 
> Sorry if I'm telling you stuff you already know, but it's hard to judge 
> the level to aim a response at from the question :-)
> 
> Regards,
> Chris B.
> 
> 
> 
> 
gnuplot is very suitable to generate charts.
Paolo

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