Hello,

Motivation:
I have a set of GUI components done with POV-Ray. That is, a few pov-files
which are parametrized by macros and declarations from include files. I just
edit one file and run a shell script (Cygwin, bash) to create textures.
While the script is executed a set of settings files (.inc) are cycled by
the script to change the global settings (to produce base textures, nice
faded alpha masks etc).

Solution:
I would be nice if I could:
* pass include files as command line parameters
* pass declarations as command line parameters
* ...and maybe put includes and declarations to ini-files

The include files and declarations would be treated as if they were in the
pov-file. Think about C/C++ global definitions (e.g. DEBUG_ON) or java's
"-D" option (e.g. java -Dpovray.myoption.renderfoo=bar). IMHO this would
ease the use of command line POV-Ray in scripts/makefiles a lot.

Nitpicking department:
I use version "3.1g.watcom.win32" with the scripts and it is a bit of pain
in the ass...the window is always created, no messages to stdout/stderr and
you need that evil "/exit" parameter. I just learned about this promising
Cygwin-version someone has created. Anyway, I think there should be a proper
and pure command line version available for 32-bit Windozes (you know, long
filenames, no memory issues, compared to ms-dos version).

Offtopic:
Is there a command line image manipulation tool which can:
* add alpha channel to an image by using another image as source (both pngs)
* convert png to targa and preserve the alpha channel

ImageMagick failed on both...or I failed to use it correctly. It just feels
overkill to hack C-apps to do solve these trivial problems (well, I already
did, but... ;)

Tero Kukola

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Tero Kukola wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Motivation:
> I have a set of GUI components done with POV-Ray. That is, a few pov-files
> which are parametrized by macros and declarations from include files. I just
> edit one file and run a shell script (Cygwin, bash) to create textures.
> While the script is executed a set of settings files (.inc) are cycled by
> the script to change the global settings (to produce base textures, nice
> faded alpha masks etc).
> 
> Solution:
> I would be nice if I could:
> * pass include files as command line parameters
> * pass declarations as command line parameters
> * ...and maybe put includes and declarations to ini-files

Declarations via command line/ini file are possible with Povray 3.5. 
Including files is not, but i don't think that would be necessary since
you can use #if for conditional includes.

> 
> Nitpicking department:
> I use version "3.1g.watcom.win32" with the scripts and it is a bit of pain
> in the ass...the window is always created, no messages to stdout/stderr and
> you need that evil "/exit" parameter. I just learned about this promising
> Cygwin-version someone has created. Anyway, I think there should be a proper
> and pure command line version available for 32-bit Windozes (you know, long
> filenames, no memory issues, compared to ms-dos version).

There is no problem with long filenames and memory with the cygwin
version.  The only problem is speed, but that's nothing that seems to
bother you. ;-)

Christoph

-- 
Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde>
IsoWood include, radiosity tutorial, TransSkin and other 
things on: http://www.schunter.etc.tu-bs.de/~chris/

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Hello,

> Declarations via command line/ini file are possible with Povray 3.5.
> Including files is not, but i don't think that would be necessary since
> you can use #if for conditional includes.
Superb! Include files as command line parameters could be used to easily
bundle a set of declarations. But, yes...this can be done with
directives+declarations and one include file.

> There is no problem with long filenames and memory with the cygwin
> version.  The only problem is speed, but that's nothing that seems to
> bother you. ;-)
Well, I was referring to the ms-dos version. And speed? Yes, starting the
Povray takes significant time compared to the actual rendering ;)

Tero K.

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On Fri, 16 Nov 2001 00:18:16 +0200, Tero Kukola wrote:
> Offtopic:
> Is there a command line image manipulation tool which can:
> * add alpha channel to an image by using another image as source (both pngs)
> * convert png to targa and preserve the alpha channel

The combination of pngtopnm, ppmtopgm, and pnmtopng should be able to solve
the first problem; note the -alpha option to pnmtopng.

The second problem can't be solved with the pnm utils because they don't 
support alpha in TGA images, but both the ppm and TGA formats are simple
enough that you might be able to make it work if you know how a TGA file 
should store alpha.

-- 
#local R=rgb 99;#local P=R-R;#local F=pigment{gradient x}box{0,1pigment{gradient
y pigment_map{[.5F pigment_map{[.3R][.3F color_map{[.15red 99][.15P]}rotate z*45
translate x]}]#local H=pigment{gradient y color_map{[.5P][.5R]}scale 1/3}[.5F
pigment_map{[.3R][.3H][.7H][.7R]}]}}}camera{location.5-3*z}//only my opinions

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In article <3BF441B8.1D7DFFF8@gmx.de> , Christoph Hormann 
<chr### [at] gmxde>  wrote:

> Including files is not, but i don't think that would be necessary since
> you can use #if for conditional includes.

It is...


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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