In article <Xns### [at] 204213191226>,
 "Rafal 'Raf256' Maj" <raf### [at] raf256com> wrote:

> No, I know that long double operations will be slower then float :) 
> The idea is to have ANOTHER distribution, and if someone realy needs high 
> precision and if speed is not important for him - he will run another build 
> of engine.

You still don't understand...no amount of precision will avoid 
coincident surface problems like the ones in the examples you gave, the 
only thing it might help would be a few special cases in some root 
solvers. Finding those and using "long double" only where it is useful 
and necessary would be the correct solution, not a massive change 
affecting the whole program. It would preferably be an alternate solving 
method so people could use the faster version if they don't need the 
high precision. And then, it should only be used if there is no way to 
reduce the sensitivity of the algorithms to this kind of error.

Going through the trouble of doing this for the POV 3.5 source would be 
a waste of time, and it wouldn't help nearly as much as you seem to 
think.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
http://tag.povray.org/

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