POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.advanced-users : Min/Max extent do not work on bicubic patches Server Time
23 Apr 2024 10:11:21 EDT (-0400)
  Min/Max extent do not work on bicubic patches (Message 1 to 2 of 2)  
From: Bald Eagle
Subject: Min/Max extent do not work on bicubic patches
Date: 3 Mar 2016 23:25:00
Message: <web.56d90d4dbc8aa28e5e7df57c0@news.povray.org>
Really?

This drove me crazy for a while until I figured out what was going on.

min_extent and max_extent return the minimum and maximum coordinates of the
_control points_ of the bezier patch, not the surface of the bezier patch
itself!

Beware!


Post a reply to this message

From: clipka
Subject: Re: Min/Max extent do not work on bicubic patches
Date: 4 Mar 2016 02:11:11
Message: <56d9350f$1@news.povray.org>
Am 04.03.2016 um 05:21 schrieb Bald Eagle:
> Really?
> 
> This drove me crazy for a while until I figured out what was going on.
> 
> min_extent and max_extent return the minimum and maximum coordinates of the
> _control points_ of the bezier patch, not the surface of the bezier patch
> itself!
> 
> Beware!

This is perfectly normal and documented:

"min_extent(OBJECT_IDENTIFIER), max_extent(OBJECT_IDENTIFIER). The
min_extent and max_extent return the minimum and maximum coordinates of
a #declared object's bounding box (Corner1 and Corner2), in effect
allowing you to find the dimensions and location of the object.

Note: This is not perfect, in some cases (such as CSG intersections and
differences or isosurfaces) the bounding box does not represent the
actual dimensions of the object."

The only thing guaranteed about min_extent and max_extent is that if the
shape is finite, they will return the corners of _some_ axis-aligned box
that contains the entire shape.

The box returned will only be the smallest possible such box if the
respective computations are reasonably simple. That's not the case for
bicubic patches.


Post a reply to this message

Copyright 2003-2023 Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.