On 1/28/2010 2:02 AM, scott wrote:
>> He wants to be able to enter a mathematical formula into a
>> ray-tracing program, but make each ray of light behave according to
>> the formula.
>
> If you want the "light rays" to travel in anything other than straight
> lines then you're going to have a *really* big job, as pretty much
> everything in POV assumes this. You would have to rewrite all the
> intersection code to test for intersections between the shape and an
> arbitrary curved ray! Plus, AIUI, POV applies the inverse of any shape
> transforms (scale, rotate, move etc) to the ray and then does the
> intersection, you'd need to work out how to apply the inverse transforms
> to your curved ray.
>
> TBH it might be easier to start from scratch without assuming straight
> rays!
>
>
Hmm. Actually, I had an odd thought a while back. Not variable 
"internal" ior, like some people would love to see, but variable surface 
ior. Use a map, just like a texture, bozo, etc., and perturb the angle 
of entry and exit, based on the variability of the pattern. Yeah, yeah, 
you could "sort of" do this by changing the shape of the object, but 
that isn't always optimal for some applications I can think of (such as 
if you where making a texture to use in something else, maybe). But, I 
do wonder what the result would end up looking like.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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