In article <3fb54524@news.povray.org>, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> 
wrote:

> Matthew Pace <mat### [at] lycoscom> wrote:
> > >   How about adding "hollow" to the sphere?
> 
> > Thanks.  I knew it would be something stupid.
> 
>   It's not stupid.
>   In my opinion it's more like a design flaw which is there for historical
> reasons.
> 
>   Firstly, the keyword itself is misleading and causes a lot of confusion
> (people use it for the wrong reason in places where there's absolutely
> no reason to use it, and when you really need to use it (like in this
> case), it's very difficult to figure out). A better keyword would be,
> for example, "allow_media".
> 
>   Secondly, "hollow" (or better "allow_media") should be *on* by default
> if the object has an interior with a media (and off by default for objects
> without media defined in their interior). It's extremely unusual to define
> a media for an object and not wanting it to show up (if you really want
> it to behave like this, you could write "hollow off" explicitly).
> 
>   Thirdly, the "hollow" ("allow_media") functionality should perhaps be
> extended so that you could allow the media of the object itself to appear
> inside of the object, but disallow any external media to show up inside
> this object. This way you could have an object with its own media and which
> does not allow any other media inside it (a glass ball with variable
> coloration inside it is a good example: Even though it has a variable
> coloration thorough its entire volume, which is achievable with media,
> it still doesn't show eg. fog inside it because it's solid glass).

Thanks a lot, I agree with all of that.  I already had similar feelings 
about the first and second parts, but the third suggestion is a good 
point.

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