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POV-Team Status Report - September 1, 2000
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Dear POV-Ray Community,

Thank you for all of your enthusiastic support for POV-Ray.  It is because
of you that this labor of love continues to exist and grow.  As many of
you know, our next release, POV-Ray 3.5, is currently in development, and
POV-Ray 4.0 is planned as a major rewrite of the core of POV-Ray.  We are
providing this status report to let the community know how things are
progressing.  Thank you all again for your support and patience.

Sincerely,
The POV-Team

----POV-Ray 3.5 Status----

POV-Ray 3.5 is a work that will be somewhat similar to the unofficial
compile known as MegaPov.  POV-Ray 3.5 will be more mature and stable than
MegaPov.

Work on POV-Ray 3.5 is progressing slowly but steadily. POV-Ray 3.5 will
contain many of the features of MegaPOV 0.5a, as described in the lists at
the end of this message. Please be aware that this feature list is
currently FIXED.  Each feature in MegaPov was carefully considered for
inclusion, and there are very good reasons why certain features have been
left out.  We are NOT requesting any discussion about features for 3.5.
Again, this list is FIXED.

The primary work on 3.5 is done, but quite a bit of work remains.  First,
we have a long list of bugs that we need to fix.  Second, some of the
features (such as light groups) are being enhanced and improved.  Third,
documentation still needs to be written. (The MegaPov documentation often
leaves a lot to be desired)  Fourth, the graphical interfaces for our
various supported platforms need to be updated.  Finally, all of this will
need to be packaged together into a final distribution.

----POV-Ray 4 Status----

Work on POV-Ray 4 has not yet begun.  However, there has been some
discussion that we feel is of interest to the community.

First, we have been discussing using a new license for 4.  Various
open-source licenses are under consideration.  We might instead use an
updated version of POVLEGAL.  No conclusions have been reached so far, but
the topic is under discussion within the POV-Team.

Second, we are also hoping to use a much more open development model for
POV 4, with public read access to our source-revision tree.  System
analysis, design, and implementation of POV 4 will be a very large task,
and this is one way we hope to speed it up.  This open development model
would also hopefully provide development releases (snapshots) more quickly
to the power-user community, similar to what MegaPov offers now.

Third, our most recent musings about POV-Ray 4 lean towards a major
reworking of the POV Scene Description Language.  This means that POV 4
may not be fully backwards compatible with old scenes.  If that is the
case, we will plan to provide an official conversion utility that will
convert old scenes into the new syntax, or provide some other means of
importing old scenes.

Finally, the POV-Team is currently not going to be involved in any public
discussion about POV 4.  We need to focus our efforts on POV 3.5.  Only
after the release of POV 3.5 will work on version 4 begin.  The community
can feel free to discuss this topic, but should not expect the POV-Team to
read such discussions at this time.

----POV-Ray 3.5 Feature List----

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NO - Not part of 3.5
========================

Blinn "microfacet" highlights
Blurred reflection
Motion Blur
Fast Macros
Post-Processing
Proximity pattern
Square pattern
Triangular pattern
ini_option
Shortcuts for #declare and #local
Reset children (deprecated - use pigment_pattern)
Text Object enhancements
Isoblob
Height of heightfield (deprecated - use trace)
String_encoding (deprecated - Unicode support instead)

========================
YES - These will be in POV 3.5
========================

JPEG image format reading
TIFF image format (reading and writing)
TrueType Unicode support
Parallel lights
Projected_through
Fade_color
Realistic attenuation
Fractal Patterns
Polarical pattern
2-d Vector bug fix
Cylinder Camera Bug Fixes
Light and Media Speed Optimization
Clock keywords
Directive #ifdef (array)
eval_pigment
eval_pattern
Image size keywords
Turbulence vector
vtransform, vinv_transform
Transform Patch
Sphere camera
Circular area lights
Soft shadow (orient)
Light Groups (will be different from MegaPov)
Photons
Conservation of energy for reflection
Metallic reflection
Variable reflection
Media
Isosurface
Mesh2
Triangle texture interpolation
Sphere sweeps
Splines - alternative syntax
Dispersion
Double_Illuminate
No_image, no_reflection
Interior_texture
Layered textures
Crackle types
Blob pattern & pigment
Function pattern
Image Pattern
Object pattern
Cells pattern
Slope pattern
Pigment pattern
Pattern Image Type
UV mapping
Mapping Using Warps
Cutaway Texturing for CSG Difference
Bounds patch
Bug fixes, Optimizations, and other Changes
Normal average bug fix
Normal reflection bug fix
Double-Illumination Bug fix
Noise bug fix (may be different from MegaPov)
Smaller bug fixes
Trace
Radiosity Improvements
Normal bug fix (and all related stuff)

========================
MAYBE
========================

The following features may or may not be included in POV 3.5.  These
features cannot be used in their current state (due to incompleteness, bugs,
or other potential problems), but may be added if time permits us to get
them ready for release.

Solid Triangle Mesh
Rational Bezier
Persistence of Variables
Date functions
Timer functions
Tick function

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