> Isn't that just nausiating to look at?
>
> (Yes, it's Saturday Night, and I'm playing with SketchUp while listening
> to Jesus on Es.)

Hehe, this is on level with someone using Paint to draw a reflective sphere 
over a checkered plane, and ending up with a red circle over a green 
rectangle :-)

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scott wrote:

> Hehe, this is on level with someone using Paint to draw a reflective 
> sphere over a checkered plane, and ending up with a red circle over a 
> green rectangle :-)

Why thank you. I feel much better now. :-P

Meh, the tutorial videos feature all kinds of intricate models, and 
YouTube has a few people drawing highly complex stuff, but I don't see 
how it's possible...

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> Why thank you. I feel much better now. :-P

Don't feel bad, you're using totally the wrong tool to try and do something 
like you attempted.  There's a reason why Nokia don't use SketchUp to design 
their phones :-)

> Meh, the tutorial videos feature all kinds of intricate models, and 
> YouTube has a few people drawing highly complex stuff, but I don't see how 
> it's possible...

Apart from showing off, I never understood people using a tool for something 
it really isn't designed for.  If you really want to design stuff like that 
phone with nice smooth surfaces then put the effort in to learning something 
like Blender rather than SketchUp.

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>> Why thank you. I feel much better now. :-P
> 
> Don't feel bad, you're using totally the wrong tool to try and do 
> something like you attempted.  There's a reason why Nokia don't use 
> SketchUp to design their phones :-)
> 
>> Meh, the tutorial videos feature all kinds of intricate models, and 
>> YouTube has a few people drawing highly complex stuff, but I don't see 
>> how it's possible...
> 
> Apart from showing off, I never understood people using a tool for 
> something it really isn't designed for.  If you really want to design 
> stuff like that phone with nice smooth surfaces then put the effort in 
> to learning something like Blender rather than SketchUp.

I wonder - is there anything that SketchUp *is* the right tool for? 
Every single time I mention it, everybody says I should use Blender 
instead...

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> I wonder - is there anything that SketchUp *is* the right tool for? Every 
> single time I mention it, everybody says I should use Blender instead...

AIUI (I only tried it once ages ago when it first came out) it is meant for 
quickly designing simple, straight-lined 3D objects.  Like simplified 
versions of buildings that mostly consist of cuboids or angled parts. 
Wasn't it originally released to allow people to add 3D versions of 
buildings to Google Earth?

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>> I wonder - is there anything that SketchUp *is* the right tool for? 
>> Every single time I mention it, everybody says I should use Blender 
>> instead...
> 
> AIUI (I only tried it once ages ago when it first came out) it is meant 
> for quickly designing simple, straight-lined 3D objects.  Like 
> simplified versions of buildings that mostly consist of cuboids or 
> angled parts. Wasn't it originally released to allow people to add 3D 
> versions of buildings to Google Earth?

Indeed, there's a big 3-part tutorial showing somebody importing a plan 
from a CAD program, tracing the walls, and cutting all the doors and 
windows. The result is pretty impressive, actually...

My own attempts to do something similar are far less convincing.

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"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:4ad228ec$1@news.povray.org...
> All it seems to say is that there should be a "min" in there. What do you 
> actually want to change in the formula?

Exactly ...

> I notice the brackets around the fraction aren't tall enough to enclose it 
> properly. You can fix it like so:
>
>   ( \frac{...}{...} )
>
> becomes
>
>   \left( \frac{...}{...} \right)

OK ... this was helpful ... thanks

> I should perhaps also point out that, technically, when TeX sees 
> <math>cat</math>, it interprets it as "c * a * t", which probably isn't 
> what you want. Use <math>\text{\it cat}</math> instead. (There's a subtle 
> difference in the letter spacing - and also the typeface is slightly 
> different.)

The \it tag (italics?) was causing me grief. It gave a lexing error ... 
failed to parse. With the \text tag alone I get normal typeface, without it 
I get the italics typeface. it doesn't seem to be behaving as you suggest.

Here's what it looks like now:
http://wiki.povray.org/content/Documentation_Talk:Reference_Section_4

I think it looks like what Mike was getting at ... correct?

Jim

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>> I notice the brackets around the fraction aren't tall enough to enclose it 
>> properly. You can fix it like so:
>>
>>   ( \frac{...}{...} )
>>
>> becomes
>>
>>   \left( \frac{...}{...} \right)
> 
> OK ... this was helpful ... thanks.

Works with any delimiter, by the way:

   \left[ ... \right]

   \left| ... \right|

etc.

If you wanted to be flashy, you could replace min(...) with those funny 
bent-angle brackets - but I don't suppose anybody except a mathematician 
would understand what the hell that means, so leave it.

>> I should perhaps also point out that, technically, when TeX sees 
>> <math>cat</math>, it interprets it as "c * a * t", which probably isn't 
>> what you want. Use <math>\text{\it cat}</math> instead. (There's a subtle 
>> difference in the letter spacing - and also the typeface is slightly 
>> different.)
> 
> The \it tag (italics?) was causing me grief. It gave a lexing error ... 
> failed to parse. With the \text tag alone I get normal typeface, without it 
> I get the italics typeface. it doesn't seem to be behaving as you suggest.

It's quite possible the Wiki doesn't support arbitrary TeX markup, but 
only supports a specific subset of commands. You could try 
\text{\emph{distance}} or something. That should typeset it in text 
italics, which is subtly different from math italics (especially 
spacing). The AMS-LaTeX \text{} command also adjusts the spacing subtly. 
I will admit that all of this makes a fairly subtle difference to the 
final output though.

> Here's what it looks like now:
> http://wiki.povray.org/content/Documentation_Talk:Reference_Section_4
> 
> I think it looks like what Mike was getting at ... correct?

Change "min" to "\min" to have it typeset correctly. (I.e., in Roman 
type, like all function names. It might even fix the spacing on the 
brackets following...)

The spacing of the superscripts looks slightly odd, but I couldn't tell 
you why...

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:4ad31c78$1@news.povray.org...
> Works with any delimiter, by the way:
>
>   \left[ ... \right]
>
>   \left| ... \right|

another nugget ... thanks

> It's quite possible the Wiki doesn't support arbitrary TeX markup, but 
> only supports a specific subset of commands.

you are probably correct ...

> You could try \text{\emph{distance}} or something. That should typeset it 
> in text italics, which is subtly different from math italics

no joy with this markup either ....

> Change "min" to "\min" to have it typeset correctly. (I.e., in Roman type, 
> like all function names. It might even fix the spacing on the brackets 
> following...)

worked ... thanks for the assist!

Cheers

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>> Works with any delimiter, by the way:
>>
>>   \left[ ... \right]
>>
>>   \left| ... \right|
> 
> another nugget ... thanks

This method makes the brackets just big enough to contain the interior 
text. You can also set the bracket size manually (e.g., if you want the 
outer brackets big and the nested brackets smaller, to aid visibility), 
but we won't worry about that. In this specific case, the brackets come 
out reasonable sizes, so no need to fiddle.

You can also do stuff like this:

             | -1  if x < 0
   sign x = <   0   if x = 0
             |  1   if x > 0

Use "\left\{" to get the stretched symbol (you have to balance it with 
"\right."), and then use an array environment to typeset the multiple rows.

>> It's quite possible the Wiki doesn't support arbitrary TeX markup, but 
>> only supports a specific subset of commands.
> 
> you are probably correct ...

I don't suppose for 13ms that there's any *documentation* for what the 
wiki actually supports though...

>> You could try \text{\emph{distance}} or something. That should typeset it 
>> in text italics, which is subtly different from math italics
> 
> no joy with this markup either ....

Really? That's odd. Well, I guess the difference is quite small.

>> Change "min" to "\min" to have it typeset correctly. (I.e., in Roman type, 
>> like all function names. It might even fix the spacing on the brackets 
>> following...)
> 
> worked ... thanks for the assist!

In general, any function name (sin, cos, tan, min, max, lim, etc.) wants 
to be handled this way (\sin, \cos, etc.)

Now, in LaTeX there's a way to define new function names - but you have 
to write the declaration in the document preamble. Not sure if you can 
access this particular feature from the wiki...

Any further questions? :-D

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