First I should say this isn't a big deal, and povray is awesome all praise be to
the creators so I only complain with deference in this and all matters to the
brilliant and dedicated team that made this masterpiece to begin with

I would say the biggest irk I have with povray is the aspect ratio issue.  I
know the fix and I have read all about why it is the way it is but I must say,
in this day and age, the need for a square or otherwise not 4x3 image (for
instance for a wide screen monitor) seems much more prevalent than the need for
non square pixels.  Of course it goes without saying that people who want the
special and strange behavior should be the ones who have to enter the keywords
in.  Frankly, I think in the modern world non square pixels are a sign of
insanity.  I know we can all change our hideously low resolution windows boot
screen to a hideously low resolution RAYTRACED boot screen (whoopie!) but I can
honestly say that I have never even considered doing that.  On the other hand, I
am constantly making square images for wiki pages and presentations.  I often
take a formerly 4x3 image and make a square version for somebody.  I wish I
could just change my makefile.  Maybe I'm alone here.

Ok, I got that off my chest. please do not take offense, I am merely complaining
to the ether, as I am continually impressed with the general awesomeness of the
code.

Post a reply to this message

"DaBjork" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> First I should say this isn't a big deal, and povray is awesome all praise be to
> the creators so I only complain with deference in this and all matters to the
> brilliant and dedicated team that made this masterpiece to begin with
>
> I would say the biggest irk I have with povray is the aspect ratio issue.  I
> know the fix and I have read all about why it is the way it is but I must say,
> in this day and age, the need for a square or otherwise not 4x3 image (for
> instance for a wide screen monitor) seems much more prevalent than the need for
> non square pixels.  Of course it goes without saying that people who want the
> special and strange behavior should be the ones who have to enter the keywords
> in.  Frankly, I think in the modern world non square pixels are a sign of
> insanity.  I know we can all change our hideously low resolution windows boot
> screen to a hideously low resolution RAYTRACED boot screen (whoopie!) but I can
> honestly say that I have never even considered doing that.  On the other hand, I
> am constantly making square images for wiki pages and presentations.  I often
> take a formerly 4x3 image and make a square version for somebody.  I wish I
> could just change my makefile.  Maybe I'm alone here.
>
> Ok, I got that off my chest. please do not take offense, I am merely complaining
> to the ether, as I am continually impressed with the general awesomeness of the
> code.

I always just put the following into my camera:

camera {
 ...
 right x
 up y * image_height/image_width
 ...
}

Cheers,
Edouard.

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"Edouard" <pov### [at] edouardinfo> schreef in bericht 
news:web.4c7c828c19f15a7aced691df0@news.povray.org...
>
> I always just put the following into my camera:
>
> camera {
> ...
> right x
> up y * image_height/image_width
> ...
> }
>

Excuse my stupidity, but is that different from?:

camera {
....
right x*image_width/image_height
up y
...
}

... (which is what most people do I believe) and in what way?

Thomas

Post a reply to this message

Le 31/08/2010 05:18, DaBjork a écrit :
> I think in the modern world non square pixels are a sign of
> insanity.

Well, you are going to have issue with the video industry.

DVD NTSC: 720 x 480 (3:2) for 4:3 & 16:9, none of the pixel is square.
DVD Pal : 720 x 576 (5:4) also for 4:3 & 16:9, not a square pixel in
sight either.

VCD & SVCD did neither use square pixel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions


-- 
A good Manager will take you
through the forest, no mater what.
A Leader will take time to climb on a
Tree and say 'This is the wrong forest'.

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Am 31.08.2010 09:46, schrieb Thomas de Groot:
> "Edouard"<pov### [at] edouardinfo>  schreef in bericht
> news:web.4c7c828c19f15a7aced691df0@news.povray.org...
>>
>> I always just put the following into my camera:
>>
>> camera {
>> ...
>> right x
>> up y * image_height/image_width
>> ...
>> }
>>
>
> Excuse my stupidity, but is that different from?:
>
> camera {
> ....
> right x*image_width/image_height
> up y
> ...
> }
>
> ... (which is what most people do I believe) and in what way?

It will affect what portion of the scene will be visible, unless you 
explicitly specify the camera's opening angle via the "angle" keyword. 
By default, the camera opening angle is determined by the ratio between 
the right & direction vectors (even if they are not explicitly specified).

Post a reply to this message

> By default, the camera opening angle is determined by the ratio between
> the right & direction vectors (even if they are not explicitly
> specified).

   I recently discovered this called in photography the "horizontal angle",
while I was always using it as if it was the "diagonal angle". But the
difference is not very important for everyday usage, I guess...


-- 
Jaime Vives Piqueres

http://www.ignorancia.org

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I wish my only issue with the video industry was their pixel aspect ratio :)


Le_Forgeron <lef### [at] freefr> wrote:
> Le 31/08/2010 05:18, DaBjork a écrit :
> > I think in the modern world non square pixels are a sign of
> > insanity.
>
> Well, you are going to have issue with the video industry.
>
> DVD NTSC: 720 x 480 (3:2) for 4:3 & 16:9, none of the pixel is square.
> DVD Pal : 720 x 576 (5:4) also for 4:3 & 16:9, not a square pixel in
> sight either.
>
> VCD & SVCD did neither use square pixel.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions
>
>
> --
> A good Manager will take you
> through the forest, no mater what.
> A Leader will take time to climb on a
> Tree and say 'This is the wrong forest'.

Post a reply to this message

Le_Forgeron wrote:
> Le 31/08/2010 05:18, DaBjork a écrit :
>> I think in the modern world non square pixels are a sign of
>> insanity.
> 
> Well, you are going to have issue with the video industry.
> 
> DVD NTSC: 720 x 480 (3:2) for 4:3 & 16:9, none of the pixel is square.
> DVD Pal : 720 x 576 (5:4) also for 4:3 & 16:9, not a square pixel in
> sight either.
> 
	Plus, those are the *screen* resolutions, but signal resolution is
usually lower than that in the horizontal direction...

		Jerome
-- 
mailto:jeb### [at] freefr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeb### [at] jabberfr

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Le_Forgeron <lef### [at] freefr> wrote:
> Well, you are going to have issue with the video industry.

> DVD NTSC: 720 x 480 (3:2) for 4:3 & 16:9, none of the pixel is square.
> DVD Pal : 720 x 576 (5:4) also for 4:3 & 16:9, not a square pixel in
> sight either.

> VCD & SVCD did neither use square pixel.

  Also, the major problem is: If you wanted POV-Ray to always assume square
pixels and then someone renders the image with a different aspect ratio
than what the camera is, what should POV-Ray do? There are quite many
possibilities:

  - Always extend or crop the image horizontally.
  - Always extend or crop the image vertically.
  - Only extend the image (either horizontally or vertically, depending on
whether the image aspect ratio is wider or narrower than the camera aspect
ratio).
  - Only crop the image (likewise).
  - Perform a combination of both.

  The problem with cropping the image is that important parts of the
scenery might get cropped away, destroying the original image composition.
Extending the image might be even worse, as unmodeled parts of the scenery
could become visible, severely degrading the quality of the end result.

  If POV-Ray supported automatic aspect ratio tuning, the *author* of the
image should have a saying in it, rather than the decision being solely
on the person who renders the image (who might not be the same person).

  I discuss with these issues in more detail and have a suggestion here:
http://bugs.povray.org/task/85

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Le 01/09/2010 17:33, Warp a écrit :
> Le_Forgeron <lef### [at] freefr> wrote:
>> Well, you are going to have issue with the video industry.
> 
>> DVD NTSC: 720 x 480 (3:2) for 4:3 & 16:9, none of the pixel is square.
>> DVD Pal : 720 x 576 (5:4) also for 4:3 & 16:9, not a square pixel in
>> sight either.
> 
>> VCD & SVCD did neither use square pixel.
> 
>   Also, the major problem is: If you wanted POV-Ray to always assume square
> pixels and then someone renders the image with a different aspect ratio
> than what the camera is, what should POV-Ray do? There are quite many
> possibilities:
> 
>   - Always extend or crop the image horizontally.
>   - Always extend or crop the image vertically.
>   - Only extend the image (either horizontally or vertically, depending on
> whether the image aspect ratio is wider or narrower than the camera aspect
> ratio).
>   - Only crop the image (likewise).
>   - Perform a combination of both.
> 
>   The problem with cropping the image is that important parts of the
> scenery might get cropped away, destroying the original image composition.
> Extending the image might be even worse, as unmodeled parts of the scenery
> could become visible, severely degrading the quality of the end result.
> 
>   If POV-Ray supported automatic aspect ratio tuning, the *author* of the
> image should have a saying in it, rather than the decision being solely
> on the person who renders the image (who might not be the same person).
> 
>   I discuss with these issues in more detail and have a suggestion here:
> http://bugs.povray.org/task/85
> 


The more I think about it, the more I think we got it wrong from the
very start.

There is in fact 2 set of related data, for a total of 6:
 view-height, view-width, view-ratio
 image-height, image-width, pixel-ratio

view-height & view-width are usually set in the SDL, (up & right,
angle...) with an implicit view-ratio ( = view-width/view-height)

image-height & image-width are set from the command line, with an
implicit pixel-ratio ( = image-width / (image-height * view-ratio) )

It could be better if instead of -H & -W, the user got to specify either
-H or -W and the pixel-ratio ( -P float ? or -PH integer -PW interger ?).

That way, the view would stick to the intent of the scene's creator (in
unmodified SDL) and the picture would be fine for the display of the
final user.

The issue would be the usage of image_width & image_height in SDL, they
would have to be gone.

If the final user wants to see more that intended by the file's creator,
he would have, with that system, to open & edit the SDL.

Final note: I do not ask for the removal of -W or -H, but that instead
the mandatory missing dimension should be provided by computation based
on pixel ratio and the provided dimension (and it might be convenient to
provide either of them to please the final user).
On the same line, an explicit "view_ratio" in the camera might compute
the up length from the right/angle size (and it might be a clearer clue
for the casual reader:

camera { ...
right x
angle 14
view_ratio 16/9
look_at ...
}

-- 
A good Manager will take you
through the forest, no mater what.
A Leader will take time to climb on a
Tree and say 'This is the wrong forest'.

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