ingo wrote:

> My worst POV-nightmare is a scene file that looks like Warp's sig.

Make the monster go away mommy...

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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When I first opened Pov I had no idea how to start, then I realised it was a
scripted approached to graphics and shut it down.

Later for reasons I won't go into now I tried again. The first thing I did
was look at the docs. in pov 3.0 there were excellent examples that lead you
through the creation of a scene(now sadly gone). after the customary
reflective sphere on a plane I started to create my own pics. Being able to
program with basic helped. I found the descriptiveness and flexibility of
the language very helpful.

Yes Pov language is getting very large and I'm on my second very large ring
file of reference material. But I don't mind that.

There are now and will so many things in pov to learn, digest and use in
scenes, that I am reaching the point where I am missing effects because I
don't understand the new features or am not familiar enough with them. I'd
rather they were there though because one day....

I don't mind new additions or different ways of doing things - we all think
differently.

Looping is one area that can definitely be improved I agree with all the
comments there.

Keep it flexible, let it evolve with many pathways to the same end, so that
povray is, as now, for all, not just for some.

Mick

--
*************************************************************
       http://www.minda.swinternet.co.uk/index.htm

*************************************************************
"Marjorie Graterol" <eme### [at] emediezcom> wrote in message
news:38c7c043@news.povray.org...
>
> "Ken" <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote in message
> news:38C7685C.5A4F3A68@pacbell.net...
> >
> <snip>
>
> > So the questions I have are really for the non-programmer types out
there.
> >
> > Would you have difficulty re-learning POV-Ray if it's language format
> > changed ?
>
> Sure I would if it is not a logic evolution or development, based on the
> current POV language. Through POV I have learned to recognize and
understand
> more other languages. Since I am not a programmer, POV was the first thing
I
> coded. Although the learning process is a little harder, it is straight
> forward and rewarding. I wouldn't change it.
> It has become very familiar to me and, besides, prompted a huge amount of
> changes in the way I looked at digital arts.
>
> Marjorie Graterol
>
>
>

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> |   for I = 1 to 5 {...}
>
> This one isn't feasible since the increment isn't changeable, as written
anyhow.

In Visual Basic this is done like so:

For i = 1 To 5 Step 3
...
Next i

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Ken,

I feel the need to make a contribution to the debate here, as I have been
involved in the discussion of changing the POV syntax and am about to submit a
proposal to a new POV-Ray language (PRL?), as a part in the making of my
Masters of Arts essay. My intention (and purpose with the research part) is to
investigate if it is possible to keep backwards compatibility when re-defining
a programming language (in this case: PRL or POV-Script as we know it). This
will consequently be my mission - to develop a language that is powerful when
you need it, yet easy to use if you're not a programming expert.

The OO-approach comes somewhat naturally as I see it, as the world in POV-Ray
consists of just that - objects. The spheres, cubes, cylinders, etc. that we
describe are all representations of physical objects. We already have the
object{[object identifier]}keyword, and the #declare MyThingy = sphere{..} is
equivalent to a class description.

I think I have mentioned this before, but I might as well say it again: The
new POV-script I am thinking of is fully backwards compatible i.e. you should
still be able to just describe a scene in no particular order, just as you
always have. Some OO-features will hopefully be possible, but you will not
have to write #declare MySphere1 = new sphere(<0,0,0>, new size(0.5), new
texture(new pigment(color new vector(<1,1,1>))))); or something as
(java-)horrible as that to create a white sphere. But, you should be able to
access the attributes of the objects in the scene, for example: #declare
camera.location = MySphere1.location - <0,0,5>;

I'm very open for suggestions, as I'm merely a POV user and we (the POV users)
should collaborate to keep POV as the best free raytracer available.

- Mikael.

----------------------------------------------------
Mikael Carneholm
Dep. of Computer Science and Business Administration


Personal homepage:
http://www.studenter.hb.se/~arch
E-mail:
sa9### [at] idautbhbse

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Axel Baune wrote:
> 
>[Snip]
>Another problem will be the
> 'dirty' programming for people without programming-knowledge. The
> example given by PoD is one of them:

dirty programming?

> 
> PoD wrote:
> >
> > Some aspects of the language which relate purely to programming could be
> > changed or (probably better) extended without affecting those who don't
> > use them.
> >
> > For a non-programmer or a programmer , macros, loops etc are a lot
> > harder in POV than the equivalents in most programming languages.
> >
> > Surely replacing
> >   #declare I=1; #while(I<=5) ... #declare I=I+1;#end
> > with either
> >   for I = 1 to 5 {...}
> > ala Basic, or even for a non-programmer,
> >   for( I=1; I <= 5; I=I+1){...}
> > would make life easier for all.
> 
> No I think not that this would make life easier for all. Problem one:
> what will be the value of the variables outside the for-loop? 

The same as it would be using a while loop?

>Problem
> two: What if you want to increment the variable in non deterministic
> steps, e.g. different steps width in each loop or you didn't want to
> increment in each loop. Than you will need the old while-construct, and
> why blowing up Pov-Script with higly specialised commands if you already
> have flexibler and more general commends for them? As a more skilled
> programmer you can always write macros for specialised problems. 

Then use a while loop and nothing is lost, except that you've made your
script hard to read.  There's probably an easier way to do it using
for()
 
>Problem
> three: What if somebody changes the variable explicitly inside the
> loop-body. I think these problems complicates the life of PoV-people
> without programming-knowledge, especially if some of these persons want
> to understand code from other people with more skilled
> programming-knowledge (especially if those people used 'dirty' and
> mostly undocumented programming constructs).

See answer to 2


PoD.

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Nieminen Juha wrote:
> 
> PoD <pod### [at] globalfreewaycomau> wrote:
> :   for( I=1; I <= 5; I=I+1){...}
> 
>   I think that a more povray-type syntax would be:
> 
> #for(I=1; I<=5; I++)
>   ...
> #end
> 
>   Of course this can be done with a #while-loop, but this kind of shortcut
> just makes life easier.
>   I would also like to see this:
> 
> #do
>   ...
> #until(whatever)
> 
>   I have at least once needed this kind of feature. With the regular #while
> loop I had to write the body of the loop twice.
> 
>   And this I have suggested before:
> 
> #declare A += B;
> #declare A -= B;
> #declare A *= B;
> #declare A /= B;
> etc...
> 
> --
> main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
> ):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

I DON'T like the Basic syntax but it's still lots simpler than POV.
I also deliberately didn't use I++ because that has nothing to do with
loop syntax and might confuse people who've never seen C, Java etc.

PoD.

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"PoD" <pod### [at] merlinnetau> wrote in message
news:38C7EEA3.D0EE7FF1@merlin.net.au...
> Axel Baune wrote:

> >Problem
> > two: What if you want to increment the variable in non deterministic
> > steps, e.g. different steps width in each loop or you didn't want to
> > increment in each loop. Than you will need the old while-construct,
and
> > why blowing up Pov-Script with higly specialised commands if you
already
> > have flexibler and more general commends for them? As a more skilled
> > programmer you can always write macros for specialised problems.
>
> Then use a while loop and nothing is lost, except that you've made
your
> script hard to read.  There's probably an easier way to do it using
> for()

For example:

for (I = 1; I <= something; ) {
    // loop body here
    I += non_deterministic_increment;
}

Johannes

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"ingo" <ing### [at] homenl> wrote in message
news:8EF2B8E07seed7@204.213.191.228...
> Nieminen Juha wrote:
>
> >#declare A += B;
> >#declare A -= B;
>
> What does it mean?

the same as

#declare A = A + B;
#declare A = A - B;

Johannes.

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In article <38C7685C.5A4F3A68@pacbell.net>, lin### [at] povrayorg 
wrote:
>Would you have difficulty re-learning POV-Ray if it's language format
>changed ?
>
>Would you resent it or maybe even quit using the program completely ?

If it's better and easier to use, I keep using it; if it's not, I don't. 
Personally, I like the template-scripting style of POV, much for the 
same reason I really like PHP for making web pages.

If I were to make one change to the language, it might be to make a form 
of macro that looks more like built-in functions. So instead of making a 
function like:

#macro FaceofGod(Religion,Sect,Vowels)

#end

and calling it like:

object { FaceofGod("Christianity","Mormon","auau")}

you could call it like:

FaceofGod {
   religion "Christianity"
   sect "Mormon"
   vowels "auau"
   pigment {
      color Green
   }
}

But this might be solved by object-oriented objects as well.

Jerry

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Johannes Hubert wrote:
> 
> "ingo" <ing### [at] homenl> wrote in message
> news:8EF2B8E07seed7@204.213.191.228...
> > Nieminen Juha wrote:
> >
> > >#declare A += B;
> > >#declare A -= B;
> >
> > What does it mean?
> 
> the same as
> 
> #declare A = A + B;
> #declare A = A - B;

So the way I see it by adding this you would save yourself the effort
of typing one character. The question the potential patch writer must
ask himself then is if it be worth the effort to patch the program to
accept this new style of arguement just to save the user from having
to type one more character into their scene file. Reduced to this it
would seem a petty feature.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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