POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.general : Blog article on POVRay : Re: Blog article on POVRay Server Time
1 Aug 2024 18:22:25 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Blog article on POVRay  
From: Christoph Hormann
Date: 8 Oct 2005 07:50:02
Message: <di8bl4$qfr$1@chho.imagico.de>
David Buck wrote:
> 
> When we started, the C++ compilers weren't very mature and we coded it 
> in straight C with OO-like enhancements.  I'm surprised that this 
> approach has survived all these years.  POVRay still doesn't use C++ 
> classes.

Well - it does in some parts and this is about to change for 3.7 for 
objects and elsewhere as well but this is still in an early stage...

The fact that it survived for so long IMO indicates it is a good design 
- it just got gradually overladen over the years.  I guess if you would 
start with the DKBTrace code now and add all the new functionality in a 
clean and consistent way the result would be quite reasonable (i would 
not really recommend to do this though).

> There was a time when we had implemented refraction wrong.  The images 
> looked ok, but they weren't correct.  To test it, we took a glass sphere 
> that a friend of mine had, put it on a real checkerboard and 
> photographed it. By modeling this scene in POVRay, we could see how well 
> the refractions matched.

I guess refraction is working all right meanwhile but i still have 
doubts about some aspects of angle dependent reflection... :-)

> 
> Aaron is doing some consulting work in Chicago.  If I heard correctly, 
> he had a bout of cancer and is now in remission.

Send him best wishes then (i guess it would be all right to do so from 
the whole POV-Team).

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Landscape of the week:
http://www.imagico.de/ (Last updated 07 Oct. 2005)
MegaPOV with mechanics simulation: http://megapov.inetart.net/


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