In article <3bc31497@news.povray.org> , "Hugo" <hua### [at] post3teledk> wrote:

> I don't know how to solve that.. But sometimes it would also be great to
> convert ISO's to bitmaps so they can be used as heightfields.. I read the
> documentation for POV 3.5 and I only see the possibility of making 255
> slices of an isosurface

What you are looking for is the "function" image type.  It turns out that
for some reason it is missing in
<http://www.povray.org/working-docs/id000164.html#6_5_1_5> so no wonder you
didn't find it.

It basically will work like this in a hfield, but to be more precise it will
work everywhere where a image file is allowed:

    height_field
    {
        function 100, 100 { x + y }
    }

Note that the hfield will be of 16 bit precision.  If you want it to look
less smooth, you have to modify the function, i.e.

    height_field
    {
        function 100, 100 { floor((x + y) * 10) / 10 }
    }

will give you a less smooth hfield surface with more visible steps.  Note
that this is more useful for a more complicated function.  This one is so
simple you will hardly see a difference.

    Thorsten

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In article <3bc320fb@news.povray.org> , "Thorsten Froehlich" 
<tho### [at] trfde> wrote:

> What you are looking for is the "function" image type.  It turns out that
> for some reason it is missing in
> <http://www.povray.org/working-docs/id000164.html#6_5_1_5> so no wonder you
> didn't find it.

Ah, I found it.  It is only in
<http://www.povray.org/working-docs/id000193.html#6_7_11_16>.

    Thorsten

Note to docs coordinator:  Could this be placed elsewhere?  The last place I
looked for it was in the pattern section.  I would rather put it in the user
defined function doc section, but even there isn't really the right place
for it :-(  Maybe a totally new section describing the image formats and
where they can be used in a nice and general way would be best.  This would
be a consolidated version of the "6.7.1.5 Image Maps", "6.7.2.3 Bump Maps",
etc docs which right now all describe the image specification syntax over
and over again.  If they would all point to a common section it would
probably be much easier and less of a hassle to update the docs as well...

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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in news:3bc3244d@news.povray.org Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> Note to docs coordinator:  Could this be placed elsewhere?

Yes, 
Rune/Chris have mentioned this earlier and I managed to forget it :(

Ingo

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