For an updated status report on the not-yet-released POV-Ray v3.5
please read the official announcement in (where else?)
povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions, with the subject line:

"POV-Team Status Report - September 1, 2000" posted by Chris Cason,
POV-Team Coordinator

-- 
Alan - ako### [at] povrayorg - a k o n g <at> p o v r a y <dot> o r g
http://www.povray.org - Home of the Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer

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"Alan Kong" <ako### [at] povrayNO-SPAMorg> wrote in message
news:e0o4rso391g3a3hubpe22sit5s11io75j3@4ax.com...
|   For an updated status report on the not-yet-released POV-Ray v3.5
| povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions, with the subject line:
|
| "POV-Team Status Report - September 1, 2000" posted by Chris Cason,
| POV-Team Coordinator

Not much I can say except it appears to be falling into place.  Things being
left out (for now or forever?) and things being put in makes sense to me for
the most part anyway.
Got to admit that version 4.0 sounds all the farther away though, guess
because it sounds like even a bigger change ahead.
Wonder how much fanfare 3.5 will get?  Past releases I remember were like a
quiet weekend at home (about like this one, Labor Day and all) because I
only interacted with a handful of people on AOL when 3.02, even 3.1, arrived
there.  Think I got 3.0 at CompuServe though.
These groups have more traffic than I ever saw at both AOL and CompuServe.
I'm waxing nostalgic so I better stop.

Bob

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On Sun, 3 Sep 2000 16:22:01 -0500 "Bob Hughes"
<per### [at] aolcom?subject=PoV-News:> wrote:

>Wonder how much fanfare 3.5 will get?

  Probably more from outside of this news server, since folks here have
been playing with MegaPov and its similar feature set for months.

-- 
Alan - ako### [at] povrayorg - a k o n g <at> p o v r a y <dot> o r g
http://www.povray.org - Home of the Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer

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Wonder how much fanfare 3.5 will get? Just consider two points:

* Isosurface capability means being able to model realistically and
compactly natural objects (e.g. I am experimenting with tree crowns with
spheres+noise etc. and they look just wonderful with a few lines of code);

* Mesh2 means being able to use the whole world of meshes (the world outside
uses almost only meshes and not primitives like POV).

These two capabilities will have the same impact as 3.1 #macro's.

Great, just great.

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"Alessandro Coppo" <a.c### [at] iolit> wrote in message
news:39b33fe3@news.povray.org...
|
| * Mesh2 means being able to use the whole world of meshes (the world
outside
| uses almost only meshes and not primitives like POV).

Brings up the question about POV-Ray exportability to meshes.
I was watching a show about a 3D modeling apparatus on the University
Channel (UCLA I think).  It laminated layers of paper together to create
real life models from computer generated ones.  Second time I've seen that.
Also, there's the plastic resin (?) modeling machines which build layer upon
layer up, similar to plotters.
Obviously you could never do that with a POV-Ray scene file until you had a
tessellated mesh object.  And the money to afford the machine(s) or pay for
a place to do it for you.  Anyhow, it's somewhat of a well-known fact that
there's not a POV-Ray export feature.  I can see how it would be a real boon
to be able to get from POV-Ray into other programs or devices.  POV-Ray
seems to be thought of as a end point when it comes to models.
I don't know if the meshes used in POV-Ray are ever exported out or not
already though.

Bob

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Bob Hughes wrote in message <39b3a111@news.povray.org>...
>I was watching a show about a 3D modeling apparatus on the University
>Channel (UCLA I think).  It laminated layers of paper together to create
>real life models from computer generated ones.  Second time I've seen that.
>Also, there's the plastic resin (?) modeling machines which build layer
upon
>layer up, similar to plotters.
>Obviously you could never do that with a POV-Ray scene file until you had a
>tessellated mesh object.

Doing this from POV-Ray wouldn't be a problem -- just render a series of
slices of your scene as black-and-white images, and use the resulting layers
as your input for the modeller.

Mark

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"Mark Wagner" <mar### [at] gtenet> wrote in message
news:39b4852c@news.povray.org...
|
| Bob Hughes wrote in message <39b3a111@news.povray.org>...
| >I was watching a show about a 3D modeling apparatus on the University
| >Channel (UCLA I think).  It laminated layers of paper together to create
| >real life models from computer generated ones.  Second time I've seen
that.
| >Also, there's the plastic resin (?) modeling machines which build layer
| upon
| >layer up, similar to plotters.
| >Obviously you could never do that with a POV-Ray scene file until you had
a
| >tessellated mesh object.
|
| Doing this from POV-Ray wouldn't be a problem -- just render a series of
| slices of your scene as black-and-white images, and use the resulting
layers
| as your input for the modeller.

Seems a feasible solution to me.  Thanks.  Not sure how a modeler might
accept the images as input then create the 3D again though, can any discern
the B&W into contour lines?

Bob

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Bob Hughes wrote in message <39b4e5c4$1@news.povray.org>...
>Seems a feasible solution to me.  Thanks.  Not sure how a modeler might
>accept the images as input then create the 3D again though, can any discern
>the B&W into contour lines?


The object you use for getting the slices has a black texture, and the scene
has a white background.  This should do the job.

Mark

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> Doing this from POV-Ray wouldn't be a problem -- just render a series of
> slices of your scene as black-and-white images, and use the resulting layers
> as your input for the modeller.
>
> Mark

You speak of rapid-prototyping. There are several possibilities to do this, the
"paper-method" is one of them.
The way you speak of (mesh, 2-d-picture, import those into one file, make a
"loft"-surface with them) is too complicated and brings too much errors.
Beside this: how do you make a spline from the BW-contours ?

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