How Camp <kro### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:3da305d8@news.povray.org...
>
> Hope this helps clarify where I'm headed.  Thanks, Shay, for your
interest.
>

I think so. Let me verify. I am assuming that each of the thousands of
points has a strength at it's point of impact and then has a sphere around
it of decreasing strength. Is this correct? If so, here is your solution:

You do not need to mesh this data. A PoV-Ray isosurface will solve this
problem easily. You could combine all of the points into one giant equation,
but that would be the slow, hard way, and I believe that PoV-Ray has a limit
to the number of terms in an equation anyway. So the solution is to make a
disk with a pigment which is rgb 1 with a transmit value of 1/10K in the
center and blends towards completely transparent at the edges. The pigment
blend can be linear or based off of any equation you may have for the
falloff of the strength of each point. Just place one of these disks at each
point where you placed your spheres and place a black plane beneath the set
of disks. Make an orthographic rendering of this set and use it as a
displacement map of the isosurface. Apply a gradient pigment if you like and
you are done.

If I misunderstood the problem or, more likely, if my solution doesn't make
any damn sense (I don't speak math), let me know.

 -Shay

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