In article <3d5025cb$1@news.povray.org>,
 "Patrick Dugan" <pat### [at] usnetcomcorpcom> wrote:

> The reason I am assuming the improvement is: If I create an object using
> differences and render it and then create the same object but using 
> unions and render it, the render time is much faster.  I thought that 
> differences slowed down rendering.  I felt that if a mesh (or mesh2) 
> object didn't have differences it should render faster.
> Of course my assumptions are probably as full of holes as my objects!

A difference is harder to calculate than a union, that's why it is 
slower. I don't know what your reasoning is that makes you think a mesh 
is automatically faster because a difference is slower than a union with 
the same shapes. The mesh primitive is a completely separate shape, not 
related to either of those, so you would need to make a mesh version to 
make any comparison.

The mesh code in POV is very efficient, it is quite possible it will 
render faster than your CSG. Or it might not, you would need a lot of 
triangles to get a good approximation of the CSG. It won't be worth the 
trouble and memory unless your CSG is very slow, and there might be a 
way to make the CSG faster.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>
POV-Ray TAG e-mail: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
TAG web site: http://tag.povray.org/

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