Every time I see something like
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Tatev_Monastery_from_a_distance.jpg
I think "You know, there *has* to be modeling software that would make 
recreating something like this as a model at least a little bit easy."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Every time I see something like
>
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Tatev_Monastery_from_a_distance.jpg
> I think "You know, there *has* to be modeling software that would make
> recreating something like this as a model at least a little bit easy."
>
> --
> Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
>    The question in today's corporate environment is not
>    so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
>    "what color is your nose?"

Totally agree. That is a beautiful view! I am working on a set of macros that
will do just what you mentioned and I think in a user friendly way too. It does
not seem like a popular thing to create a building design tool using POV-Ray SDL
but I am trying anyway. Will post/announce some functioning set in a week or so.
Hoping to convert to pure SDL too.

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Kene wrote:
> Totally agree. That is a beautiful view! I am working on a set of macros that
> will do just what you mentioned and I think in a user friendly way too. It does
> not seem like a popular thing to create a building design tool using POV-Ray SDL
> but I am trying anyway. Will post/announce some functioning set in a week or so.
> Hoping to convert to pure SDL too.

I did a somewhat lame version of this which I put on sourceforge under the 
name "lome".  It's a macro processor, but the macros I wrote for it first 
were for midieval archtecture.

I started with building interiors, however, which is a lot harder than 
exteriors, methinks, just because POV doesn't give as much help with 
bounding boxes as a mesh-based system could. So you can't just make a macro 
for the outside walls and repeat it for each floor, or everything in the 
whole building will be inside the same bounding box.  (My first attempt gave 
me seconds-per-pixel rates instead of pixels-per-second. :-)

But something interactive could be fun, yes. So far, Wings is the thing I've 
found it easiest to make buildings in, but it lacks niceities like the 
ability to put a wall across two other walls and have it actually join up 
seamlessly.


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> (My first attempt gave me seconds-per-pixel rates instead of pixels-per-second
>

Sorry if I am a bit ignorant but what do you mean by the above sentence?

Would you mind if I sent you a copy of what I have so far? If you have attempted
this before maybe you have experience I could learn from? I am putting up a blog
site to allow feedback and download on this effort but until it is live I would
be very happy if you could test and send me some comments/suggestions now. And
this goes for anyone else interested in creating buildings using POV-Ray.

The web site well be life in about 2 weeks at the most.

> But something interactive could be fun, yes. So far, Wings is the thing I've
> found it easiest to make buildings in, but it lacks niceities like the
> ability to put a wall across two other walls and have it actually join up
> seamlessly.

My effort is a building design system, so it is interactive. It will allow you
to model a house in ways that only POV-Ray SDL can do (in my experience) which
is closest to how it is done in real life. This means that you actually build
the house as opposed to drawing it. Think what tex/latex is to writing documents
as opposed to word-processors. Hopefully, it won't be as cryptic but I can
easily see it as similarly complex over time. Which a good user-guide will
easily smooth over, I think.

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Kene wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> (My first attempt gave me seconds-per-pixel rates instead of pixels-per-second
>>
> 
> Sorry if I am a bit ignorant but what do you mean by the above sentence?

I mean that the bounding boxes were so bad and light sources so numerous 
that it would take several seconds to calculate each pixel the way I had it 
originally laid out.

> Would you mind if I sent you a copy of what I have so far? If you have attempted
> this before maybe you have experience I could learn from? I am putting up a blog
> site to allow feedback and download on this effort but until it is live I would
> be very happy if you could test and send me some comments/suggestions now. And
> this goes for anyone else interested in creating buildings using POV-Ray.

I'm going to be AFK for a couple of weeks, but I'll be happy to look at it 
when I'm back.

But definitely take a look at LOME. Maybe making that your output format 
instead of SDL directly would be beneficial. Maybe not. Hard to say without 
knowing anything about your code.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Every time I see something like
>
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Tatev_Monastery_from_a_distance.jpg
> I think "You know, there *has* to be modeling software that would make 
> recreating something like this as a model at least a little bit easy."

  Maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SketchUp

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 6-3-2010 0:56, Darren New wrote:
> Every time I see something like
>
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Tatev_Monastery_from_a_distance.jpg

> 
> I think "You know, there *has* to be modeling software that would make 
> recreating something like this as a model at least a little bit easy."
> 
A rough version is easiest to do in POV of all programs (using for loops 
and macros). Further improvement is easiest in a modelling program.

My thoughts when I see something like this is often: "I wish there was 
an inport in blender for POV files".

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Warp wrote:
>   Maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SketchUp

Ah, I had forgotten that I'd not tried that one. I'll give it a go some time 
soon. Thanks!

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

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> Every time I see something like
>
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Tatev_Monastery_from_a_distance.jpg
> I think "You know, there *has* to be modeling software that would make 
> recreating something like this as a model at least a little bit easy."

Something like Chief Architect?

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scott wrote:
>> Every time I see something like
>>
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Tatev_Monastery_from_a_distance.jpg

>>
>> I think "You know, there *has* to be modeling software that would make 
>> recreating something like this as a model at least a little bit easy."
> 
> Something like Chief Architect?


Dunno. I'll look into it. Thanks!

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

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