Well, it seems that recently I have enjoyed tackling "challenges" in
POVRay more than creating scenes.  I'm sure I'll go back to making
images that do more than demonstrate my code at some point, but I
recently had a little brainstorm (like 2 minutes ago).  My brainstorm
involves the object of the day (for those of you who somehow didn't see
Ken's posts that would be the heightfield) and the idea of controlling
it more specifically (for instance animating waves?)  I realized that,
(and maybe I've just missed when people started using this) morphing is
the answer.  Heighfields are built off of 2D images.  Now it is possible
to morph a single image with itself, just using control lines.  This is
the method I would suggest, the question is, are we content with the
current morphing software, or should I spend some time playing with
making a util specifically for heightfields?

Steve

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What platform are you using? What programming languages do you know?

I haven't had the time to look into it too closely, but I get the
distinct impression that the GIMP would be an excellent tool for
generating height fields, especially if you wanted to be able to script
changes to them.  It a Unix application, though, and I believe the
built-in scripting support is built around Scheme, which is not the
first language most people learn. Still, I should think it would be
easier to learn Scheme than to build a new app from scratch.

Ignore the bit in the Halloween documents about the GIMP being not much
more than Paint.  It doesn't look like much at first glance, but there's
a great deal beneath the surface.

Stephen Lavedas wrote:
> 
> Well, it seems that recently I have enjoyed tackling "challenges" in
> POVRay more than creating scenes.  I'm sure I'll go back to making
> images that do more than demonstrate my code at some point, but I
> recently had a little brainstorm (like 2 minutes ago).  My brainstorm
> involves the object of the day (for those of you who somehow didn't see
> Ken's posts that would be the heightfield) and the idea of controlling
> it more specifically (for instance animating waves?)  I realized that,
> (and maybe I've just missed when people started using this) morphing is
> the answer.  Heighfields are built off of 2D images.  Now it is possible
> to morph a single image with itself, just using control lines.  This is
> the method I would suggest, the question is, are we content with the
> current morphing software, or should I spend some time playing with
> making a util specifically for heightfields?
> 
> Steve

-- 
Mark Gordon
mtg### [at] mailbagcom
http://www.mailbag.com/users/mtgordon/index.html

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e++>++++ 
h- r*%--- y--
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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Stephen Lavedas wrote:
> 
> Well, it seems that recently I have enjoyed tackling "challenges" in
> POVRay more than creating scenes.  I'm sure I'll go back to making
> images that do more than demonstrate my code at some point, but I
> recently had a little brainstorm (like 2 minutes ago).  My brainstorm
> involves the object of the day (for those of you who somehow didn't see
> Ken's posts that would be the heightfield) and the idea of controlling
> it more specifically (for instance animating waves?)  I realized that,
> (and maybe I've just missed when people started using this) morphing is
> the answer.  Heighfields are built off of 2D images.  Now it is possible
> to morph a single image with itself, just using control lines.  This is
> the method I would suggest, the question is, are we content with the
> current morphing software, or should I spend some time playing with
> making a util specifically for heightfields?
> 
> Steve

    Kind of funny that you bring this up. I ran across some old
  C code the other day that has to do with image creation for
  use in a HF wave generating routine. I have been busy the last
  couple of days and just haven't had a chance to approach one of
  you programmer types to see if it was possible to impement this
  application for Pov.

  For further consideration and an explanation of the process visit
  the the following link:

  ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/graphics/graphics/misc/wave/README

  The source code can be seen at:

  ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/graphics/graphics/misc/wave



-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

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Well, I'm working on a Wintel machine, but I have access to both a Linux
machine and a Unix machine.  I know C++ (and more, but it seems the most
useful) and I have a book with the morphing code in it, so reading and
displaying an image file as well as the control lines would be most of
the work, then passing it through the algorithm would be merely
implementing the code I've got.  I could make this a simple app or a
complex app depending on how useful it is.

Steve


Mark Gordon wrote:
> 
> What platform are you using? What programming languages do you know?
> 
> I haven't had the time to look into it too closely, but I get the
> distinct impression that the GIMP would be an excellent tool for
> generating height fields, especially if you wanted to be able to script
> changes to them.  It a Unix application, though, and I believe the
> built-in scripting support is built around Scheme, which is not the
> first language most people learn. Still, I should think it would be
> easier to learn Scheme than to build a new app from scratch.
> 
> Ignore the bit in the Halloween documents about the GIMP being not much
> more than Paint.  It doesn't look like much at first glance, but there's
> a great deal beneath the surface.
> 
> Stephen Lavedas wrote:
> >
> > Well, it seems that recently I have enjoyed tackling "challenges" in
> > POVRay more than creating scenes.  I'm sure I'll go back to making
> > images that do more than demonstrate my code at some point, but I
> > recently had a little brainstorm (like 2 minutes ago).  My brainstorm
> > involves the object of the day (for those of you who somehow didn't see
> > Ken's posts that would be the heightfield) and the idea of controlling
> > it more specifically (for instance animating waves?)  I realized that,
> > (and maybe I've just missed when people started using this) morphing is
> > the answer.  Heighfields are built off of 2D images.  Now it is possible
> > to morph a single image with itself, just using control lines.  This is
> > the method I would suggest, the question is, are we content with the
> > current morphing software, or should I spend some time playing with
> > making a util specifically for heightfields?
> >
> > Steve
> 
> --
> Mark Gordon
> mtg### [at] mailbagcom
> http://www.mailbag.com/users/mtgordon/index.html
> 
> -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> Version: 3.12
> GCS/S d-- s-:+> a- C++ UA+$ UH+$ UO+ $US+ $UL++++ P+++ L++(+++) E W++ N+
> o--
> K++ w---$ O- M V--$ PS++ PE- Y+ PGP->+ t+ 5++ X R+ tv-- b++ DI++ D+ G
> e++>++++
> h- r*%--- y--
> ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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From the little I read, it seems that interior to POVRay, the only way
this could work would be if the heightfield were converted to a mesh and
then the mesh points operated on.  If you are going to work external to
POVRay, well, the code is already written isn't it?

Steve


Ken wrote:
> 
> Stephen Lavedas wrote:
> >
> > Well, it seems that recently I have enjoyed tackling "challenges" in
> > POVRay more than creating scenes.  I'm sure I'll go back to making
> > images that do more than demonstrate my code at some point, but I
> > recently had a little brainstorm (like 2 minutes ago).  My brainstorm
> > involves the object of the day (for those of you who somehow didn't see
> > Ken's posts that would be the heightfield) and the idea of controlling
> > it more specifically (for instance animating waves?)  I realized that,
> > (and maybe I've just missed when people started using this) morphing is
> > the answer.  Heighfields are built off of 2D images.  Now it is possible
> > to morph a single image with itself, just using control lines.  This is
> > the method I would suggest, the question is, are we content with the
> > current morphing software, or should I spend some time playing with
> > making a util specifically for heightfields?
> >
> > Steve
> 
>     Kind of funny that you bring this up. I ran across some old
>   C code the other day that has to do with image creation for
>   use in a HF wave generating routine. I have been busy the last
>   couple of days and just haven't had a chance to approach one of
>   you programmer types to see if it was possible to impement this
>   application for Pov.
> 
>   For further consideration and an explanation of the process visit
>   the the following link:
> 
>   ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/graphics/graphics/misc/wave/README
> 
>   The source code can be seen at:
> 
>   ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/graphics/graphics/misc/wave
> 
> --
> Ken Tyler
> 
> mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

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Hey, Gimp is Great, Look above for my posts on the win32 compile of GIMP. it's
buggy, but it is :-)



Mark Gordon wrote:
> 
> What platform are you using? What programming languages do you know?
> 
> I haven't had the time to look into it too closely, but I get the
> distinct impression that the GIMP would be an excellent tool for
> generating height fields, especially if you wanted to be able to script
> changes to them.  It a Unix application, though, and I believe the
> built-in scripting support is built around Scheme, which is not the
> first language most people learn. Still, I should think it would be
> easier to learn Scheme than to build a new app from scratch.
> 
> Ignore the bit in the Halloween documents about the GIMP being not much
> more than Paint.  It doesn't look like much at first glance, but there's
> a great deal beneath the surface.
> 
> Stephen Lavedas wrote:
> >
> > Well, it seems that recently I have enjoyed tackling "challenges" in
> > POVRay more than creating scenes.  I'm sure I'll go back to making
> > images that do more than demonstrate my code at some point, but I
> > recently had a little brainstorm (like 2 minutes ago).  My brainstorm
> > involves the object of the day (for those of you who somehow didn't see
> > Ken's posts that would be the heightfield) and the idea of controlling
> > it more specifically (for instance animating waves?)  I realized that,
> > (and maybe I've just missed when people started using this) morphing is
> > the answer.  Heighfields are built off of 2D images.  Now it is possible
> > to morph a single image with itself, just using control lines.  This is
> > the method I would suggest, the question is, are we content with the
> > current morphing software, or should I spend some time playing with
> > making a util specifically for heightfields?
> >
> > Steve
> 
> --
> Mark Gordon
> mtg### [at] mailbagcom
> http://www.mailbag.com/users/mtgordon/index.html
> 
> -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> Version: 3.12
> GCS/S d-- s-:+> a- C++ UA+$ UH+$ UO+ $US+ $UL++++ P+++ L++(+++) E W++ N+
> o--
> K++ w---$ O- M V--$ PS++ PE- Y+ PGP->+ t+ 5++ X R+ tv-- b++ DI++ D+ G
> e++>++++
> h- r*%--- y--
> ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

-- 
//Spider 
( spi### [at] bahnhofse ) [ http://www.bahnhof.se/~spider/ ]
#declare life = rand(seed(42))*sqrt(-1);

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On Sat, 06 Mar 1999 21:12:55 -0600, Mark Gordon <mtg### [at] mailbagcom> wrote:
>Ignore the bit in the Halloween documents about the GIMP being not much
>more than Paint.  It doesn't look like much at first glance, but there's
>a great deal beneath the surface.

So even microsofties don't understand the right mouse button, eh?
Big surprise there.  I spent a lot of time with the GIMP this weekend,
and I think it's at least as good as Photoshop.  Even has a lot of the
same icons...

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Stephen Lavedas wrote:

> Well, it seems that recently I have enjoyed tackling "challenges" in
> POVRay more than creating scenes.  I'm sure I'll go back to making
> images that do more than demonstrate my code at some point, but I
> recently had a little brainstorm (like 2 minutes ago).  My brainstorm
> involves the object of the day (for those of you who somehow didn't see
> Ken's posts that would be the heightfield) and the idea of controlling
> it more specifically (for instance animating waves?)  I realized that,
> (and maybe I've just missed when people started using this) morphing is
> the answer.  Heighfields are built off of 2D images.  Now it is possible
> to morph a single image with itself, just using control lines.  This is
> the method I would suggest, the question is, are we content with the
> current morphing software, or should I spend some time playing with
> making a util specifically for heightfields?
>
> Steve

Here's another method that is only a theory:

In POV-Ray use an orthographic camera against a plane and direct lighting,
using a bump pigment pattern,
then create a sereies of images using phasing and other transformations.
This will give you a series of images that you can use for height fields in
an animation, as long as it is possible to open a sequence of files instead
of one file... and for every frame in the final animation you need to have
one hieght field already made up...

something else to play with and distract me from my IRTC entry

--
Josh English
eng### [at] spiritonecom
www.spiritone.com/~english

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