Wasn't it Hendrik Iben who wrote:
>Hi,
>It might be better to give an example of what I want to do :
>I want to visualize interference in 3d space by altering the
>color/refraction of an object in space. Another nice pattern would be the
>simulation of smoke and things like that. So I do not need the position of
>the object(center) but just the position the raytracer is at. I do not know
>if this will look  good but I would like to see it...
>There must be some sort of interface for things like this in pov-ray since
>the bozo pattern does a simlar thing. I can't believe that theses patterns
>are just built in...

In official POV-Ray, the pigment patterns really are built in. However,
in the unofficial MegaPOV it's possible to use isosurface functions to
generate a pigment pattern. You can control the colour and transparency
of the surface, but not the refractive index of the interior.

There's a bit of a description of this sort of thing in my isosurface
tutorial: http://www.econym.demon.co.uk/isotut/pigfun.htm

I don't really expect that you'll have much success with getting any
remotely realistic smoke without using media, but perhaps you might try
having an isosurface pigment on several closely spaced planes, and
setting them to be so transparent that each individual plane is
virtually invisible.

Hint: If you try this, don't forget to set
   global_settings { max_trace_level 
to a number that's greater than the number of surfaces that you want the
rays to penetrate.

I'd be interested to hear if you have any luck.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

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