Warp wrote in message <39f2eaf4@news.povray.org>...
>  Could it be possible to use, for example, a higher order polynomial to
>make a patch that covers 9 points (instead of 4)? The number of objects
>would then reduce to 1/4, I think.
>  You could go even further and make each patch to cover 16 points. In this
>case a polynomial object is not enough (I think it would need an order
higher
>than 7, which is the max for polys), but you could do it with isosurfaces
>(and isosurfaces render a bit faster than polys anyways).


The problem with using higher-order polynomials for interpolation is that,
once you go beyond cubic interpolation, the quality of the interpolation
goes down, rather than up.  With interpolation using a 7th order polynomial,
I'd expect some fairly wild ups and downs to the heightfield.

Mark

P.S.  The limit for POV-Ray's poly object is 15th order.

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