As a machinist, when we make a part, we are often asked to "break" edges with a
certain radius.  This makes edges somewhat smoother without altering the shape
to a large degree.  Say if I made a 1" cube out of steel, each edge might have
a .030 radius.  No longer sharp edges but yet still a 1" cube.  If I create a
box in povray the edges are very sharp.  Can a radius be applied automatically
to edges?  It is very tedious to create radius edges in code even for a simple
shape.

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"joe" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.49bb2b0654e60e5c95f7ce5b0@news.povray.org...
> box in povray the edges are very sharp.  Can a radius be applied 
> automatically

There's the f_rounded_box of functions.inc but if you're asking about more 
than just box-like shapes somebody else might have other ideas.

Bob H.

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joe nous illumina en ce 2009-03-13 23:56 -->
> As a machinist, when we make a part, we are often asked to "break" edges with a
> certain radius.  This makes edges somewhat smoother without altering the shape
> to a large degree.  Say if I made a 1" cube out of steel, each edge might have
> a .030 radius.  No longer sharp edges but yet still a 1" cube.  If I create a
> box in povray the edges are very sharp.  Can a radius be applied automatically
> to edges?  It is very tedious to create radius edges in code even for a simple
> shape.
> 
> 
If you look into the various include files from the distribution, you'll find 
"shapes.inc".
That include contains several macro based shapes, including a round_box that 
should fit the bill quite nicely, and faster than the isosurface solution.
You should also take a look to the object collection. It contains the code to 
create various shapes with rounded edges.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
You know you've been raytracing too long when you wonder why you ever collected 
those 200 megs worth of paint and image manipulation programs now rusting 
somewhere on your hard drive.
Ken Tyler

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"joe" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> As a machinist, when we make a part, we are often asked to "break" edges with a
> certain radius.  This makes edges somewhat smoother without altering the shape
> to a large degree.  Say if I made a 1" cube out of steel, each edge might have
> a .030 radius.  No longer sharp edges but yet still a 1" cube.  If I create a
> box in povray the edges are very sharp.  Can a radius be applied automatically
> to edges?  It is very tedious to create radius edges in code even for a simple
> shape.

There's a simple answer to this question. Unfortunately, it is "No".

There are a few macros that do the job for simple shapes such as boxes and
cylinders, but that's about it.

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Alain <ele### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> joe nous illumina en ce 2009-03-13 23:56 -->
> > As a machinist, when we make a part, we are often asked to "break" edges with a
> > certain radius.  This makes edges somewhat smoother without altering the shape
> > to a large degree.  Say if I made a 1" cube out of steel, each edge might have
> > a .030 radius.  No longer sharp edges but yet still a 1" cube.  If I create a
> > box in povray the edges are very sharp.  Can a radius be applied automatically
> > to edges?  It is very tedious to create radius edges in code even for a simple
> > shape.
> >
> >
> If you look into the various include files from the distribution, you'll find
> "shapes.inc".
> That include contains several macro based shapes, including a round_box that
> should fit the bill quite nicely, and faster than the isosurface solution.
> You should also take a look to the object collection. It contains the code to
> create various shapes with rounded edges.
>
> --
> Alain

No I was talking about applying a radius or smoothing all edges of a shape no
matter what it is.  From posts later in this thread apparently it is not
possible.

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"joe" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> No I was talking about applying a radius or smoothing all edges of a shape no
> matter what it is.  From posts later in this thread apparently it is not
> possible.

This is known as 'filleting' in the CAD industry, and is a standard feature of
most high-end CAD software. If you can find/gain access to a CAD modeller with
this feature, you can probably export your models to POV-Ray as meshes.

Bill

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joe wrote:
> As a machinist, when we make a part, we are often asked to "break" edges with a
> certain radius.  This makes edges somewhat smoother without altering the shape
> to a large degree.  Say if I made a 1" cube out of steel, each edge might have
> a .030 radius.  No longer sharp edges but yet still a 1" cube.  If I create a
> box in povray the edges are very sharp.  Can a radius be applied automatically
> to edges?  It is very tedious to create radius edges in code even for a simple
> shape.

I do this a lot with all of the modeling I've done, and I have some 
macros that make the easier shapes.  But at times I have had to do the 
nitty details as well to get the desired results.

I find that one of the best long-run time savers in this regard is to 
design the object in question so that the radius of the edge is defined 
in a variable that can be changed with one #declare statement, made 
before the actual object-building code.  It makes the modeling more 
tedious, but I usually want to change the radius at least once, so it's 
worth the extra trouble.

Regards,
John

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