POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.programming : A modest proposal Server Time
21 Dec 2025 03:09:59 EST (-0500)
  A modest proposal (Message 17 to 26 of 46)  
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From: Johannes Bretscher
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 1 Jul 1999 16:24:51
Message: <377BCFA7.EC459915@rz.fh-muenchen.de>
Mark Wagner wrote:

> Doing this has many advantages:
> 
> First, it will make learning the language much easier.  By reducing the
> number of object type keywords from 23 to 4, plus the CSG keywords
> intersection and union.  All the other objects can be constructed from these
> basic objects.

Do you really think so? I think using the box keyword is much easier,
and
much easier to learn than using a poly with all its parameters.
 
> Second, it will reduce the time spent by the computer parsing the scene
> files.  With the reduced number of keywords, the POV-Ray parser will have a
> smaller list of words to check against, resulting in faster parsing and
> quicker detection of syntax errors.

Well, parsing time is not very often the longer time, when tracing an
image.
 
> Third, this would make writing utilities to convert to or, primarily, from
> the POV-Ray format significantly easier, as the programmer would have fewer
> object types to contend with.

If you have problems with that, why dont you have tools like yacc or
bison
doing this job for you? They come free with every Linux distribution and
make
creating a parser an much easyer job.

Perhaps the language would be easier to be read by computers, but IMHO
it
would never be human readable.

> With all the benefits that implementing this proposal would provide, I
> strongly urge the POV-Team to pursue this course of action.
> 
> Mark

Jojo


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From: H E  Day
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 2 Jul 1999 22:08:09
Message: <377D6F33.65EF@teleport.com>
You are a very sad man.  I suggest you find help.

H.E. Day


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From: SamuelT 
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 3 Jul 1999 18:09:41
Message: <377E8AAD.27C4F64A@aol.com>
Ken wrote:

> Why complicate things with such slow primitives. Each of your chosen objects
> are difficult to compute and are slow to render. I propose instead reverting
> to a simple phong shaded triangle rendering system. This would make realtime
> raytracing possible and the are no shapes that cannot be represented with
> triangles.
>
> --
> Ken Tyler

Please, don't let POV be a triangle-based renderer!!! That's a big reason I
choose pov over over such raytracers as RayDream!!!


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From: Ken
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 3 Jul 1999 18:19:15
Message: <377E8C13.5BC2106D@pacbell.net>
"SamuelT." wrote:

> Please, don't let POV be a triangle-based renderer!!! That's a big reason I
> choose pov over over such raytracers as RayDream!!!

  I was jesting. Making a joke. I was not serious. I was lying. I don't
want Pov to revert to a phong shaded triangle rendering system. I was
pulling your leg. Do not believe my sincerity. Ain't gonna happen. Never
had it never will. Hades will freeze over first. Don't worry be happy :)
I withdraw my suggestion. Long live all primitve types and may even more
be added in the future. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net


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From: Ken
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 3 Jul 1999 18:33:32
Message: <377E8F6B.4FC48120@pacbell.net>
Mark Wagner wrote:
> 
> I just had an idea for an improvement to the POV-Ray scene language:
> 
> Get rid of all the object keywords except blob, julia_fractal, and poly.

Mark,

  I have yet to see a single rebuttal on your part concerning some of the
responses to this thread that you started. Were you simply bored and
thought you would stir people up or were you in fact serious about this
wild unorthodox proposal of yours ?

Stand and be heard by your peers !

-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net


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From: Alex Vandiver
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 3 Jul 1999 18:52:25
Message: <377E9412.D0BF1EF1@tiac.net>
> Get rid of all the object keywords except blob, julia_fractal, and poly.

This is certainly a start.  However, as has already been mentioned, this is
simply not enough simplification.  My modest proposal is as follows:
Remove all primitives and replace them with a single 'line' primitive, in the
form of:
line {
  <x1,y1,z1>,<x2,y2,z2>
}
Lines have huge amounts of versatility, far more than even triangles.  What is
more, they simplify and speed up renders by astronomical proportions!  There are
only two conditions; either a ray hits the line, or it doesn't.  Gone is all of
the fussing with normals or even textures.  As a line is infinitely thin, the
chance of a ray hitting it is infinitely small, and thus the number of ray
intersections will be _drastically_ reduced.  This will in turn increase the
rendering speed, dare I say *PAST* the speed of real-time rendering!  With LORT,
(Line-Only Ray Tracing) and LO-Ray (Line-Only Raytracer) it would be
theoretically possible to raytrace faster than the speed of light, making time
travel possible.  The masterpieces that could be created can only be begun to be
imagined.
-Alex Vandiver

/--------------------------------------------\
|    Join the LO-Ray (Line-Only Raytracer)   |
| project today by pressing the power button |
| on your monitor, or look on the web at the |
|    amazing graphics possible, at http://   |
\--------------------------------------------/


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From: SamuelT 
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 3 Jul 1999 21:51:15
Message: <377EBE9E.568FD8BF@aol.com>
Thank goodness!!!

Ken wrote:

> "SamuelT." wrote:
>
> > Please, don't let POV be a triangle-based renderer!!! That's a big reason I
> > choose pov over over such raytracers as RayDream!!!
>
>   I was jesting. Making a joke. I was not serious. I was lying. I don't
> want Pov to revert to a phong shaded triangle rendering system. I was
> pulling your leg. Do not believe my sincerity. Ain't gonna happen. Never
> had it never will. Hades will freeze over first. Don't worry be happy :)
> I withdraw my suggestion. Long live all primitve types and may even more
> be added in the future. A rolling stone gathers no moss.
>
> --
> Ken Tyler
>
> mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net


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From: Mark Wagner
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 4 Jul 1999 02:41:37
Message: <377f0221@news.povray.org>
Ken wrote in message <377A2299.8056D310@pacbell.net>...
>
>Mark Wagner wrote:
>>
>> I just had an idea for an improvement to the POV-Ray scene language:
>>
>> Get rid of all the object keywords except blob, julia_fractal, and poly.
>I propose instead reverting
>to a simple phong shaded triangle rendering system. This would make
realtime
>raytracing possible and the are no shapes that cannot be represented with
>triangles.


Phong-shaded triangles - isn't that what AutoCad release 12 uses?  It looks
truly awful.

Mark


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From: Mark VandeWettering
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 24 Jul 1999 17:47:37
Message: <379a3479@news.povray.org>
Mark Wagner <mar### [at] gtenet> wrote in message
news:3779b282@news.povray.org...
> I just had an idea for an improvement to the POV-Ray scene language:
>
> Get rid of all the object keywords except blob, julia_fractal, and poly.

Another (more serious) suggestion would be to eliminate all the internal
object types in favor of a single highly optimized primitive (say
triangles).  You can still have the higher level primitives at the level of
the input language, but convert them (lazily, and perhaps with caching) into
triangles for the purpose of tracing.   Having a single underlying geometric
representation allows you to concentrate your effort on producing a highly
optimized set of routines that benefit all scenes.

Mark


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From: Bob Hughes
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 24 Jul 1999 21:31:12
Message: <379A68AA.E643AC11@aol.com>
Egad man! All triangles?! No way! I'd have to put POV-Ray on the shelf
if it were done that way. The non-meshed primitives in POV-Ray are my
favorite things. And please, no one tell me that is how they really are
done, you know, internally within the render engine, okay? I'd hate to
hear it if so.

Bob

Mark VandeWettering wrote:
> 
> Another (more serious) suggestion would be to eliminate all the internal
> object types in favor of a single highly optimized primitive (say
> triangles).  You can still have the higher level primitives at the level of
> the input language, but convert them (lazily, and perhaps with caching) into
> triangles for the purpose of tracing.   Having a single underlying geometric
> representation allows you to concentrate your effort on producing a highly
> optimized set of routines that benefit all scenes.
> 
> Mark

-- 
 omniVERSE: beyond the universe
  http://members.aol.com/inversez/homepage.htm
 mailto://inversez@aol.com?Subject=PoV-News


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