Yikes.  No iso-surface part of the Official POV-Ray 3.5?  That's got
to hurt.
All in all I have to favor the POV-Teams' commitment to a good program
versus a sloppy haphazard one regardless the downfalls.

Bob

Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote in message
news:37EAE86E.BBCD7F89@pacbell.net...
>
>
> John VanSickle wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone know what new features will definitely be a part of
v3.5?
> > --
> > ICQ: 46085459
>
> Chris Cason rumored a possible distributed rendering addition but
that
> is not promised. Beyond that the only "official" statement to date
on
> what might be expected is this from Chris Young:
>
> USER PATCHES AND VERSION NUMBERS
>
>   When we started on 3.1 it was supposed to be a "quick" release
before our
> planned total rewrite in C++ for 4.0. Unfortunately version 3.1 took
a year
> longer than expected.  Meanwhile a number of excellent user-created
patches
> had appeared.  When 3.1 was released without these patches we were
> criticized for ignoring them.  Many of the patches were not
available until
> after 3.1 was well under way.  Some of the patches we were not aware
they
> existed. (Its that nasty CY-doesn't-read-newsgroups problem again
<heheh>)
> Hey the Team Coordinator can't coordinate what he doesn't know
existed can
> he?
>    Anyway, I think we've recognized and corrected this problem too.
I did
> know about a user-submitted #macro patch and although we didn't use
his code
> directly, it was a VERY BIG help in designing our own.  As you know,
#macros
> made it into 3.1 along with much requested arrays and file i/o which
was
> pretty easy to include.  Also halo author Zsolt Szalavari told me
about his
> idea for generalizing all patterns such as bozo, gradient, wood etc.
for use
> with halo.
>    As one of the major purposes of 3.1 was to turn halo into media,
it was
> the perfect chance to add this feature. So version 3.1 was either
based on
> user-created patches or some strongly demanded user features.
However we have
> to recognize that the whole reason for having a 3.1 version was to
correct
> problems with a haphazard integration of a user-submitted patch into
3.0.
>    We had already implemented atmosphere when we first heard about
halo. Halo
> was so wonderful that we could not resist putting it in even though
we were
> nearly ready to release 3.0.  While the original design looked good,
it was
> confusing. It was inconsistent with atmosphere. It created big
problems within
> the core code and it aggravated other long-standing design problems.
Our zeal
> to drop in a user patch late in the game caused lots of problems and
it took
> lots of work in 3.1 to fix them.
>   So we recognize that there is a BIG backlog of user patches with
features
> we REALLY want.  But do we really want to force them to wait until a
major
> 4.0 rewrite in a new language?
>   After much debate the answer is no. Therefore the current plan is
to create
> a POV-Ray 3.5 whose primary purpose is make official, as many
user-submitted
> patches as possible.  To borrow Ron Parker's term, this will be a
"Super Patch"
> version.  Note however we will not simply be rubber-stamping Ron's
work in
> collecting patches as they currently exist.  Ron's super-patch is
proving
> useful to the team in evaluating various patches (thanks Ron)
however some
> work must be done to integrate the new features in way that won't
conflict
> with future plans.
>   Also some of the features will be modified or eliminated.  For
example
> cross-platform portability is a major design priority and the
iso-surface
> patch makes use of DLLs that are not portable.  We will likely
eliminate
> that part of the patch. At this point we can't say what will or will
not
> make the final cut.  We'll be contacting authors of all the patches
we know
> about.
>    We'll be asking their permission to use their patch but WE CANNOT
GUARENTEE
> that it will be used and you should expect that it may be modified
or rewritten
> in some way if it does make the cut.  If you have a POV-Ray 3.1
compatible patch
> and do not receive email from me by February 1, 1999 then I don't
know about
> your patch and you should email me at c_y### [at] compuservecom to tell
me about
> it. We'll try to keep everyone informed of our progress as best we
can.
>
> --
> Ken Tyler
>
> See my 1000+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
> http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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