In article <Xns### [at] povrayorg>,
 ingo <ing### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

> in news:cja### [at] netplexaussieorg Christopher
> James Huff wrote: 
> 
> You don't need automatic tesselation of all objects. Displacement 
> mapping and also (sub pixel) surface subdivision, are typical features 
> for triangle based objects. So why not implement them just for mesh(2) 
> to begin with? Why not stretch POV-Ray's mesh-abilities to the maximum
> [1]? 

True, and I agree that it would be useful. It just doesn't seem complete 
without a way to turn other primitives into meshes, either explicitly or 
hidden behind a deformation feature.
And it's still a lot of work.


> [1] ... and why only mesh-abilities? What about, for example, blobs? 
> box-blob, spline-blob, torus-blob(section), blob calculation methods 
> ...? Let me guess, the awnser will probably be "you can do that with 
> isosurfaces". As a user, that is not good enough for me (within
> limits). When I start building a blob object and feel the need for a

> isosurface.

You can do that with isosurfaces. ;-)
More blob component types would be very nice, but the math is pretty 
complex, there aren't many people who understand it. What you want is 
probably possible, but you'll have to find someone who knows how to 
implement it.
You might be interested in one of my other projects though. I've been 
working on an updated blob pattern, using a smooth blob function...no 
more abrupt changes in shading and reflections when using it as an 
isosurface. Isosurfaces with this function are much faster than the 
equivalent function written with user-defined functions, but could be 
made even faster with a new "blob2" primitive, which would use an 
isosurface-type solving method with additional optimizations, such as 
only computing the components that can affect the ray. Making all the 
component types you talked about would be very easy (several of them are 
already implemented partially), and you could even use user-defined 
functions as well, though you would have to bound them manually or leave 
them without bounds.

-- 
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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