> Christian Froeschlin <chr### [at] chrfrde> wrote:
>> Neat! I take it these images are essentially an exorbitant
>> number of spheres around externally generated data points?
> 
> Exactly right. :) (See my other post for my somewhat hacky workflow)
> 
> The data files vary in size from a few 100k for the thin spindly ones, up to
> 20MB+ for the more voluminous ones. Luckily even the vast ones are pretty quick
> to produce from just the equation coefficient data. The slowest part appears to
> be writing the data file!
> 
>> I wondered if it's a blob but I thought some transitions
>> didn't quite look like it, although it's hard to tell
>> with the small object size. If it's spheres it might
>> be worth to try a blob for faster rendering.
> 
> I tried blobs, but they turn out to be many times slower for this case. These do
> use radiosity and multiple area_lights, after all. With antialiasing off, they
> render in a couple of minutes (parsing can be longer!). With AA on, an hour or
> so.
> 
> Actually I quite like the expanded-polystyrene/gritty look that bare spheres
> produce!
> 
> 

You could output as DF3 file and render as an isosurface. You also could 
render those as media. It can be worth a try.



Alain

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