Hi
A few days ago I saw this link in povray.off-topic
http://www.henrywagner.org/povray/images/field1.htm and decided to re-create
the scene.
I got a fair-ish representation last week and added the poser people and the
boat today.

Although I have a question about what pov does during the parse stage.
During test renders I was using ~30,000 objects (pyramid2 from shapes.inc)
for which the total trace time was just a few minutes. For the final render
I used ~60,000 of these objects and even though the trace only took a few
minutes, pov took 25 minutes to during the parse to create light and vista
buffers. Is there anything I can do to speed this process up? I changed the
union to a mesh in the pyramid2 definition and that helped loads - peak
memory used dropped from 50Mb to about 14Mb in the 30K object case - but on
the final render peak memory was 125Mb and my machine has only 64Mb so
windows was thrashing the virtual mem a bit. (maybe I just answered my own
question)

Thanks
Jim

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Attachments:
Download 'Field_new.jpg' (77 KB)

Preview of image 'Field_new.jpg'

Are you using #declared objects?

POV uses much less memory if you do this:

#declare Tetrahedron =
    mesh {
        // your shape
    }

object { TetraHedron rotate 360*VRand(Seed) }
object { TetraHedron rotate 360*VRand(Seed) }
object { TetraHedron rotate 360*VRand(Seed) }
object { TetraHedron rotate 360*VRand(Seed) }
object { TetraHedron rotate 360*VRand(Seed) }
...


Though admittedly I wouldn't expect much saving with only 4 polys.

Also it might be quicker to use CSG objects instead of triangles. I'm not sure
how pov implements triangle meshes (I never use them). You could just do the
intersection of 4 planes. In fact I just worked out the maths so I can't resist
putting it here :)

#declare Tetrahedron =
    intersection {
        plane { <1,1,1>, 1 }
        plane { <-1,1,-1>, 1 }
        plane { <1,-1,-1>, 1 }
        plane { <-1,-1,1>, 1 }
    }

That should do it.
Though it's gone midnight and I might have made a glaring error :)

--
Tek
http://www.evilsuperbrain.com


jimbobjim <jim### [at] blueyondercouk> wrote in message
news:3c754e72@news.povray.org...
> Hi
> A few days ago I saw this link in povray.off-topic
> http://www.henrywagner.org/povray/images/field1.htm and decided to re-create
> the scene.
> I got a fair-ish representation last week and added the poser people and the
> boat today.
>
> Although I have a question about what pov does during the parse stage.
> During test renders I was using ~30,000 objects (pyramid2 from shapes.inc)
> for which the total trace time was just a few minutes. For the final render
> I used ~60,000 of these objects and even though the trace only took a few
> minutes, pov took 25 minutes to during the parse to create light and vista
> buffers. Is there anything I can do to speed this process up? I changed the
> union to a mesh in the pyramid2 definition and that helped loads - peak
> memory used dropped from 50Mb to about 14Mb in the 30K object case - but on
> the final render peak memory was 125Mb and my machine has only 64Mb so
> windows was thrashing the virtual mem a bit. (maybe I just answered my own
> question)
>
> Thanks
> Jim
>
>
>

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My gosh! Look at the pollution!

=) jk, I like it, though it seems a bit simple - a big island in the
distance may add something.

did you intend for the shapes to be floating? 'cause they're hovering in the
air at the moment.

- Slime
[ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]
[ http://www.slimeland.com/images/ ]

Post a reply to this message

jimbobjim wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> Although I have a question about what pov does during the parse stage.
> During test renders I was using ~30,000 objects (pyramid2 from shapes.inc)
> for which the total trace time was just a few minutes. For the final render
> I used ~60,000 of these objects and even though the trace only took a few
> minutes, pov took 25 minutes to during the parse to create light and vista
> buffers. Is there anything I can do to speed this process up? I changed the
> union to a mesh in the pyramid2 definition and that helped loads - peak
> memory used dropped from 50Mb to about 14Mb in the 30K object case - but on
> the final render peak memory was 125Mb and my machine has only 64Mb so
> windows was thrashing the virtual mem a bit. (maybe I just answered my own
> question)

First of all you must have got something wrong here.  'Pyramid2' is in
'shapes2.inc' and is an intersection of planes which is surely much slower
and needs more memory than a mesh.  

The best solution would probably be to use meshes placed in a tree
structure (can be achieved using recursive macros)

If you want to optimize render speed it would be even better to make all
pyramids in one mesh, but this would result in a higher memory use and
parsing time so it's probably not a practicable idea.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, IsoWood include,                 
TransSkin and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/  
Last updated 21 Feb. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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> Also it might be quicker to use CSG objects instead of triangles. I'm not
sure
> how pov implements triangle meshes (I never use them). You could just do
the
> intersection of 4 planes. In fact I just worked out the maths so I can't
resist
> putting it here :)
>
> #declare Tetrahedron =
>     intersection {
>         plane { <1,1,1>, 1 }
>         plane { <-1,1,-1>, 1 }
>         plane { <1,-1,-1>, 1 }
>         plane { <-1,-1,1>, 1 }
>     }
>
> That should do it.
> Though it's gone midnight and I might have made a glaring error :)

Isn't that how the tetrahedron is defined in shapes.inc?  I didn't check it,
but I believe all geometrical solids are defined using intersections of
planes, so all you need is #include "shapes.inc" - all this math for nothing
;-)

Zero

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In article <3c77bbc9@news.povray.org>, "Zero" <zer### [at] yahoocom> wrote:

> Isn't that how the tetrahedron is defined in shapes.inc?  I didn't check it,
> but I believe all geometrical solids are defined using intersections of
> planes, so all you need is #include "shapes.inc" - all this math for nothing
> ;-)

The file is "shapes2.inc", and the definition isn't quite the same:
#declare Tetrahedron =
 intersection 
  {plane {-y,1}
   plane {-z,1 rotate <19.47,    0, 0>}
   plane {-z,1 rotate <19.47, -120, 0>}
   plane {-z,1 rotate <19.47,  120, 0>}
  }

-- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>
POV-Ray TAG e-mail: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
TAG web site: http://tag.povray.org/

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Christoph Hormann" <chr### [at] gmxde>
Newsgroups: povray.binaries.images
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 11:18 AM
Subject: Re: This may be my first *complete* scene (75K)

> First of all you must have got something wrong here.  'Pyramid2' is in
> 'shapes2.inc' and is an intersection of planes which is surely much slower
> and needs more memory than a mesh.

Argh...sorry, It seems I had a bit of finger trouble...
What I meant was Pyramid from shapes2.inc - anyway heres what i'm using:
#declare Pyramid =
   mesh {   //changed from union
      triangle { <-1, 0, -1>, <+1, 0, -1>, <0, 1, 0>  }
      triangle { <+1, 0, -1>, <+1, 0, +1>, <0, 1, 0>  }
      triangle { <-1, 0, +1>, <+1, 0, +1>, <0, 1, 0>  }
      triangle { <-1, 0, +1>, <-1, 0, -1>, <0, 1, 0>  }

      triangle { <-1, 0, -1>, <-1, 0, +1>, <1, 0, +1>  }
      triangle { <-1, 0, -1>, <+1, 0, -1>, <1, 0, +1>  }

   scale <1, 2, 1>
   translate -y
}

I then have a loop which writes an include file by generating random
translations and rotations in the form:
object {Pyramid translate <...> rotate <...>}
object {Pyramid translate <...> rotate <...>}
object {Pyramid translate <...> rotate <...>} ...x60,000

although the .inc file isn't written on every render.
Is there a more effiecient way of writing this?

Thanks
Jim

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Slime" <noo### [at] hotmailcom>
Newsgroups: povray.binaries.images
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 1:57 AM
Subject: Re: This may be my first *complete* scene (75K)


> My gosh! Look at the pollution!

I think this may be my over entusiastic first attempt at using the fog, but
it is however nesecary to 'cover up' the fact that there are only a finite
number of the shapes which extend only a couple of hundred units into the
distance...i'll tweak the fog colour a little

> =) jk, I like it, though it seems a bit simple - a big island in the
> distance may add something.

I did think that in some form it would serve as a nice background to my
currently backgroundless IRTC effort. and seeing as there's only 5 days left
it probably will have to do, although when I pull them together I'm hoping
it won't look like two scenes that are just 'glued' together.

> did you intend for the shapes to be floating? 'cause they're hovering in
the
> air at the moment.
The shapes are floating yes, like in the original
image(http://www.henrywagner.org/povray/images/field1.htm) although now you
mention it, a nice addition may be to make an isosurface ocean (or similar
object with actual waves) and use trace() to place the shapes on the waves.
(a bit too advanced for me at the moment perhaps)

Jim

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Ah, but that's far less accurate! :)

--
Tek
http://www.evilsuperbrain.com


Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom> wrote in message
news:chr### [at] netplexaussieorg...
> In article <3c77bbc9@news.povray.org>, "Zero" <zer### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
>
> > Isn't that how the tetrahedron is defined in shapes.inc?  I didn't check it,
> > but I believe all geometrical solids are defined using intersections of
> > planes, so all you need is #include "shapes.inc" - all this math for nothing
> > ;-)
>
> The file is "shapes2.inc", and the definition isn't quite the same:
> #declare Tetrahedron =
>  intersection
>   {plane {-y,1}
>    plane {-z,1 rotate <19.47,    0, 0>}
>    plane {-z,1 rotate <19.47, -120, 0>}
>    plane {-z,1 rotate <19.47,  120, 0>}
>   }
>
> --
> Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>
> POV-Ray TAG e-mail: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
> TAG web site: http://tag.povray.org/

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Hi! I liked your image with all the stuff floating over the water! You've just
inspired me and gave me new ideas! Thanks!

jimbobjim wrote:

> Hi
> A few days ago I saw this link in povray.off-topic
> http://www.henrywagner.org/povray/images/field1.htm and decided to re-create
> the scene.
> I got a fair-ish representation last week and added the poser people and the
> boat today.
>
> Although I have a question about what pov does during the parse stage.
> During test renders I was using ~30,000 objects (pyramid2 from shapes.inc)
> for which the total trace time was just a few minutes. For the final render
> I used ~60,000 of these objects and even though the trace only took a few
> minutes, pov took 25 minutes to during the parse to create light and vista
> buffers. Is there anything I can do to speed this process up? I changed the
> union to a mesh in the pyramid2 definition and that helped loads - peak
> memory used dropped from 50Mb to about 14Mb in the 30K object case - but on
> the final render peak memory was 125Mb and my machine has only 64Mb so
> windows was thrashing the virtual mem a bit. (maybe I just answered my own
> question)

You're saying you got not enough memory? I can't stand it that technical
problems stop others from working with povray. I'll get you additional 64Mb or
128Mb memory RAM as a favor from a friend! I need to know what memory type do
you want (SDRam or the newer one)

>
>
> Thanks
> Jim

Well done!! Keep up the good work!

>
>
>  [Image]

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