In article 
<Pin### [at] belialrenonvus>, 
<cre### [at] belialrenonvus> wrote:

> > Isosurfaces, which are shapes defined by an arbitrary equation.
> 
> Ummmm ok :) 

I did a bad job of explaining that, sorry. The isosurface object takes 
an equation and a threshold value, and creates the surface from all the 
points where the equation is equal to the threshold. The surface of the 
shape is like a skin stretched over the areas of higher density(or lower 
density, depending on how you set it up). As an example, the equation 
for a unit sphere is "sqrt(sqr(x) + sqr(y) + sqr(z)) - 1". So an 
isosurface sphere would be:
isosurface {
    function {sqrt(sqr(x) + sqr(y) + sqr(z)) - 1}
    threshold 0 // This tells it to place the surface at points
                // where the value of the equation is 0
}


> I've heard about media but to my (semi?:) eternal shame I haven't even
> read POVrays docs on media yet...I know it can do cool stuff...

It is basically a way of simulating atmospheric effects like smoke, 
steam, fire, fog...(there is a separate "fog" feature, but it behaves 
differently. For example, it doesn't interact with lights, and shadows 
don't show in it.)


> Isn't that the guy who wrote those lens flare plugins for Moray (I d/l it
> to try it (Moray that is :)...now I use it for it's awesome texture
> editor....well material editor I should say......man POVRAY sure gives me
> heck when I try and combine my inc file with borrowered materials from
> Moray and textures from the textures.inc file :)

Nathan Kopp? He is the one managing MegaPOV. He is also the one who 
wrote the improvements to the radiosity, the third media sampling 
method, and the photon mapping feature. :-)

I'm not sure about Moray plugins(I don't use Moray, I don't even use the 
same platform), but he has done lens flare include files...

-- 
Chris Huff
e-mail: chr### [at] yahoocom
Web page: http://chrishuff.dhs.org/

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