David Buck <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:
> What POVRay needs is its own user interface tailored to POVRay. Other 
> user interfaces tend to break the world into triangles which don't 
> translate well to POVRay.  The POVRay text files are cumbersome because 
> they are non-visual and they force you to constantly switch from text 
> mode to render mode.
> 
> I would like to see a user interface that supports all of the POVRay 
> primitives.  It would allow you select components of the scene with 
> parameters that are alterable.  You don't necessarily need to see the 
> text but rather a graphical representation of the text.  It would allow 
> you to change any parameters and would re-render the scene automatically 
> with those changes.  The rendering might be incremental - it renders in 
> low resolution first and refines the image as you wait or renders 
> without textures then with textures or it renders without reflections 
> and later adds reflections - just some ideas.
> 
> I often find myself asking "What happens if I change this parameter?" 
> To answer that I need to keep editing and rendering until I understand 
> it.  I'd rather select the parameter in a UI and use the mouse to change 
> the value and see in real time what it does to the image.
> 
> Thoughts?
> David Buck

Some form of node based editor would be nice. I built one of those for
picking up MEF plugins that allows the company to add code made by other
units to a common pool and thus enables composition of apps from already
tested production code instead of reinventing the wheel for each new app,
and requires no knowledge of code to use....just flowchart skills.

Node based UI is now very common, and Houdini has a good one. That app is
the easiest to use IMO of any commercial package I have tried.

Ian

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