On Fri, 17 Mar 2000 01:53:12 +1100, Nigel Stewart wrote:
>	Yes it should.  Enforced portability is very limiting.
>	I'm talking about the portability of POV scenes,
>	not the C implementation - which I agree should be
>	kept portable.

*boggle*  You're saying it would be good to be able to make POV scenes that 
don't render on every platform for a given version of POV?  Can we just send
all the support questions to you?  What color is the sky in your world?

-- 
These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html

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Nigel Stewart wrote:
> 
>         Yes it should.  Enforced portability is very limiting.
>         I'm talking about the portability of POV scenes,

HUH ?!?!?!?!?!?! WTF????
You want to be able to make non portable scene files???
What are you smoking?

PoD.

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In article <38D0F558.B878634F@nigels.com>, nig### [at] eisanetau wrote:

> 	Yes it should.  Enforced portability is very limiting.
> 	I'm talking about the portability of POV scenes,
> 	not the C implementation - which I agree should be
> 	kept portable.

You are kidding, right? If anything, the POV scenes should be more 
portable. If it runs on one platform, it should run *exactly* the same 
on another, regardless of the hardware or operating system. Otherwise, 
it is an indication of a problem with the port.(and would lead to lots 
of support problems)


> >   Pov scenes and the povray source code are two completely different 
> >   things.
> > Don't mix them.
> 
> 	I'm not, you are.

This started out as a discussion about the source code, you started 
talking about scene files without clearly stating the switch(apparently 
*nobody* knew you weren't talking about the source). So you were the one 
mixing the two.

-- 
Chris Huff
e-mail: chr### [at] yahoocom
Web page: http://chrishuff.dhs.org/

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Pabs wrote:

> have the struct that determines syntax highlighting in the POV-Ray src
> (instead of the CodeMax support code) so that
> patches can use proper syntax highlighting for their new keywords etc.

How 'bout having a dialog box in the editor that allows for user-defined
syntax highlighting and different highlighting for different file types?

I know this has nothing to do with POV, but the editor is so great I
like to use it for HTML and stuff.

--
___     _______________________________________________
 | \     |_          <dav### [at] faricynet> <ICQ 55354965>
 |_/avid |ontaine        http://www.faricy.net/~davidf/

"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." -Dali

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David Fontaine wrote:

> How 'bout having a dialog box in the editor that allows for user-defined
> syntax highlighting and different highlighting for different file types?

 Speaking unofficialy...

 I have suggested the idea of creating custom file associations and
definable syntax highlighting to Mr. Cason already and he indicated
a positive interest in the idea. Where it will go from there though
is anyones guess.

-- 
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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>   Povray is NOT a windows program.

Sorry, I don't know much about other platforms
but I get how the src is made platform independent

But it doesn't mean that I shouldn't address issues I see in POV for specific
platforms
You may notice that functions could also be specified by macros &
pov-functions (platform independent) but I forgot to mention formulas, like
MegaPov has

Can anyone tell me what they think instead of just arguing over platform
independence
We all have a platform we like, use, are comfortable with, are fiercely loyal
to, hate, get pissed off by, avoid on the grounds of its domination, blah
blah blah, but lets not go to war over something so stupid, we are all
supporters of POV-Ray.

The main reason for my post was that to me the current texture stuff seems
inconsistent across pigments, normals, finishes etc. and that I would like to
have more control over the ray leaving a surface or going through an interior
(So I can make a mirage)

Thanks All
Pabs

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On Thu, 16 Mar 2000 16:16:27 -0600, David Fontaine <dav### [at] faricynet>
wrote:

>I know this has nothing to do with POV, but the editor is so great I
>like to use it for HTML and stuff.

I already use it for HTML :) This is from a site I am working on:

  <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="POV-Ray(tm) for Windows(tm)">
  <META NAME="Author" CONTENT="Peter Popov">


Peter Popov
pet### [at] usanet
ICQ: 15002700

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Pabs wrote in message <38D19836.6EAFBF9C@hotmail.com>...
>The main reason for my post was that to me the current texture stuff seems
>inconsistent across pigments, normals, finishes etc. and that I would like
to
>have more control over the ray leaving a surface or going through an
interior
>(So I can make a mirage)


Making a true mirage would require POV-Ray to be able to find the
intersection points between an object and a differential equation.  If you
look at the source code for POV-Ray, you will see that for some objects,
such as the isosurface, finding where a straight line intersects the object
is quite complicated.  It may not even be possible to find the intersection
points of a differential equation and the object with sufficient accuracy
without spending several hours per pixel.

Mark

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> *boggle*  You're saying it would be good to be able to make POV scenes that
> don't render on every platform for a given version of POV?  Can we just send
> all the support questions to you?  What color is the sky in your world?

	Ron, there is no difference between supporting an
	extension mechanism explicitly, and having scenes
	that are specific to SuperPatch, MegaPatch, or
	ImpPov.  The difference with an official mechanism
	is that POV can handle it more gracefully than
	a general parse error message.

	One way to do this is to add a platform identifier
	tag in the scene, so that a different pov can detect
	scenes that arn't going to work.

	I'm well aware of this "sacred cow" of portability,
	but I do think that there are enough people asking
	for a plug-in architecture that it is worth finding
	a compromise.  Why bother with things like custom
	languages when you can use the language of your
	choice?

	The sky here is blue and clear - it is a beutiful
	summer day, eventhough it's officially autumn.
	Hopefully, I get to go to the beach tomorrow.

--
Nigel Stewart (nig### [at] nigelscom)
Research Student, Software Developer
Y2K is the new millenium for the mathematically challenged.

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On Fri, 17 Mar 2000 11:10:16 +1100, Nigel Stewart wrote:
>
>> *boggle*  You're saying it would be good to be able to make POV scenes that
>> don't render on every platform for a given version of POV?  Can we just send
>> all the support questions to you?  What color is the sky in your world?
>
>	Ron, there is no difference between supporting an
>	extension mechanism explicitly, and having scenes
>	that are specific to SuperPatch, MegaPatch, or
>	ImpPov.  The difference with an official mechanism
>	is that POV can handle it more gracefully than
>	a general parse error message.

We've already handled the unofficial patch problem gracefully, as everyone's
seen in MegaPOV.  Starting with 3.5, there will likely be more guidelines for
unofficial versions; one is to prevent the kinds of problems we've seen with
people trying to user superpatch or MegaPOV scenes with the official version.

But multiple incompatible official versions would still be a support nightmare.

>	I'm well aware of this "sacred cow" of portability,
>	but I do think that there are enough people asking
>	for a plug-in architecture that it is worth finding
>	a compromise.  

We're aware of the number of people asking for a plugin architecture.  As
for adding an API a'la Renderman, it's unlikely that we'll do such a thing 
in the forseeable future due to the reasons that are stated in POVLEGAL.
Other plugin-type things are still being actively discussed.

Besides, I don't think you've thought through the consequences of what you're
asking for here.  Essentially, you're saying you want to take this nice little
sharing, giving community we have here and balkanize it into language-based
camps.

As usual, please note the note in my signature.

-- 
These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html

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