In article <web.3d8193ecfeedefd415e7f0160@news.povray.org>,
 "Alex" <ale### [at] alphacit> wrote:

> If I might dare offer such an example, I'd say that
> env. mapping and a floating point file format (though not one
> as simple as the one envisioned by Mr. Maj: point your google to
> shared exponent floating point) could help implementing HDRI in POV.

The words "RGBE" and "Radiance" would help in that search. I've been 
working on some code for reading/writing these files, if I get it 
working I'll patch it into POV or post it to these newsgroups for 
someone else to put into POV. Don't let this discourage anyone else from 
doing it though...that project is on hold for a while, and it isn't even 
a POV patch yet.


> Now, don't tell me HDRI is a hack: the whole ray-tracing stuff is a hack.

HDRI: High Dynamic Range Image? Actually I'd say that the limited range 
image formats are hacks. ;-)


> And, beside that, using denormalized mantissas for color components
> is very useful for postprocessing (and far better than 16-bit output).

The post-processing patch had a "filter" that restored the non-clipped 
values to the image. Everything was taken care of in POV, without going 
to a file, so you had to write a filter or use existing ones, but 
filters were very easy to write. This also let you keep full float 
precision, without even the loss of precision from RGBE format, and let 
you control filters using POV Script and features like pigments and 
patterns. It'd probably work best if POV could save the necessary data 
and run just the post-process stuff without re-rendering the scene, 
though.


> I surely can grok the whole thing by myself, alone, in a week, perhaps,
> coming to grasp every little nuance of the source code (yes, I have that
> experience in programming), but *I* *don't* *have* *time*. I want to see the
> POV-Ray community grow,

In a week? If you didn't have to sleep and already knew all the 
algorithms used. However, getting a basic understanding of the code and 
of where and how to modify it to add a specific feature shouldn't take 
any longer than that for a good coder.


> I love it, I want to see the bleeding edge of CG research in POV-Ray.
> But. But, I don't have time to contribute much: so I would love to buy
> a book about POV-Ray programming, to have a CVS of an experimental POV-Ray.
> *sigh*. Vox clamavit in deserto.

The POV Team has talked about a more open development model for 4.0, so 
it is a possibility...

-- 
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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