You might want to take a look at Christoph
Hormann's "Mechsim", or at the latest MegaPOV
release, in which it is incorporated.

Creating an inbuilt physical simulation algorithm
with other techniques than that seems to me
quiet impossible. Other than Polygon-Based
renderers, POV-Ray doesn't have many
object-nodes on which calculations may
be based, surfaces aren't easily defined as with
polygons. In effect, it becomes quiet difficult
to properly have for example a sphere and
a box interact, it gets even more complicated
with CSG, hollow objects, mass etc.

The problem with scripting them into the core
of POV-Ray is that most of the time, several
approaches exist, and they might be quiet
contradictory in setting them up. AFAIK,
POV-Ray 4 (which is a long way off, and
don't think about asking about it: it's finished
when its finished, as always with POV-Ray,
and I don't object) should have better support
for plug-ins (in other words: other support
than just POV-Script Include-Files) in order
to make writing own enhancements easier
and faster (as POV-Script is quiet slow).

Maybe you'd want to write a mesh-based
physical simulation in C++, and the output
of that can be used for POV-Ray to
render. Several programs have been done
that way.

Regards,
Tim


-- 
Tim Nikias v2.0
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights
Email: no_lights (@) digitaltwilight.de


> Greetings!
>
> I have been using POV-Ray for graphical work
> for a couple of years, and am truly impressed
> with the functionality and flexibility of the program.
> Becoming more and more fascinated with the
> potential of ray-tracing in general and POV-Ray
> in particular, I have lately started pondering on
> the possibility of integrating physics simulation
> in the software - a new step towards the ultimate
> realism that computer grapics as an art form
> seems to strive for.
>
> I am aware of some tendencies in this direction,
> e. g. simulation of gravity in particle generators.
> But have there been any systematic and organized
> programming initiatives? It would of course be
> a tremendous undertaking, but a glorious one as
> well - turning POV-Ray into a general phenomeno-
> logical and physical software rather than just an
> application for making pretty pictures.
>
> (I am not a programmer myself, so regard this as
> a question born out of pure curiosity. Although I
> realize the enormous complexity of the proposed
> task, I can't help but being... well, swept away by
> the thought of what lies ahead!)
>


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