In article <3d503959@news.povray.org>, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> 
wrote:

>   Of course this raises the question why do you want to use an isosurface
> to create a heightfield at all?
>   The only thing I can think of is that you want to use non-linear
> transformations on the heightfield. Creating a mesh instead of an isosurface
> will lead to enormously faster render times, and you can move the vertex
> points at will, which simulates non-linear transformations.

Less memory, no trouble with faceting or other triangle problems.


>   I think there are macros in the official distribution for this (I don't
> remember if they allow transformations, but if they don't, you can make
> your own version of the macro with vertex transformations).

There are height field generator macros, they don't really have any 
advantage over the height_field primitive except that there are 
cylinderical and spherical versions available. (and I like the smoothing 
better)
You still have the "no overhangs" restriction, for example. However, the 
code is there, so you could modify it to do whatever you want.

-- 
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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