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21 Dec 2025 05:03:18 EST (-0500)
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From: Lance Birch
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 30 Jun 1999 05:06:24
Message: <3779de10@news.povray.org>
And I thought everyone realised CSGs were slow ;-)

--
Lance.


---
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Nieminen Mika wrote in message <3779dc83@news.povray.org>...
>In povray.general Mark Wagner <mar### [at] gtenet> wrote:
>: Second, it will reduce the time spent by the computer parsing the scene
>: files.
>
>  But it certainly will increase drastically the time spent tracing the
>scene.
>
>--
>main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
>):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/


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From: Mark Gordon
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 30 Jun 1999 08:21:47
Message: <377A0BEB.19B20B28@mailbag.com>
Perhaps this is a modest proposal after the model of Swift.  That, or
the author needs to cut back on the math classes a little bit.  If that
isn't possible, an algorithms class may be in order.  The elegant
solution is not necessarily the most efficient.

-- 
Mark Gordon
mtg### [at] povrayorg


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From: Ron Parker
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 30 Jun 1999 09:36:53
Message: <377a1d75@news.povray.org>
On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 07:01:26 GMT, Glen Berry wrote:
>On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 01:59:46 -0400, "Mark Wagner"
><mar### [at] gtenet> 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.
>>
>>This would not prevent the use of the other types of shapes, as all of the
>>other shapes can be created from these basic types using only the
>>'intersection', 'union', and 'inverse' keywords.
>
>What about planes, triangles, and meshes? (Not to be confused with a
>comedy staring Steve Martin and John Candy.) Can these really be
>created with only the object types you mention?

A plane is a simple poly. A triangle is (sort of) an intersection of planes, 
though to get it right I think you'd still need clipped_by.  A mesh is just a 
union of a bunch of triangles.  But I'd like to see the code that replaces a 
text object (it is possible, though insanely ugly, and it only requires polys 
of degree 3 and lower.)

Oh, and you don't need inverse for anything but blobs or julias, either,  as 
flipping the sign of the poly accomplishes the same thing.

And while we're at it, let's get rid of area_light, since you can fake it with 
a grid of point light sources.  And we can get rid of either the matrix keyword 
or the rotate, translate, and scale keywords.  And we don't need color_map 
because you can do that with a pigment_map, but we don't need pigment_map 
because you can do THAT with a texture_map.  We don't need the checker, bricks, 
or hexagons patterns, because they can be synthesized with various gradients 
and the repeat warp.  I believe the repeat warp itself can be synthesized with 
various gradients, so long as you only use rational offsets (and all numbers 
are rational in a computer, so...)  We don't need marble, because it's just a 
texture_map of a couple of gradients.

I'm sure there's more stuff we can eliminate in our quest for syntactic purity
and orthogonality.  I mean, what's the point in doing this if you're only going 
to go halfway?  I say Mark's idea would only be good for slackers.

Oh, and pretend there's a HUGE smiley face at the end of this post, just as 
y'all should have at the end of Mark's post.


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From: Ken
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 30 Jun 1999 09:59:52
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.

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

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net


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From: Simon de Vet
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 30 Jun 1999 11:02:09
Message: <377A3ECE.B7B6EB4A@istar.ca>
Glen Berry wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 01:59:46 -0400, "Mark Wagner"
> <mar### [at] gtenet> 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.
> >
> >This would not prevent the use of the other types of shapes, as all of the
> >other shapes can be created from these basic types using only the
> >'intersection', 'union', and 'inverse' keywords.
>
> What about planes, triangles, and meshes? (Not to be confused with a
> comedy staring Steve Martin and John Candy.) Can these really be
> created with only the object types you mention?
>
> Incidently, for a "modest" proposal, this sounds pretty radical to me.

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

Simon
http://home.istar.ca/~sdevet

PS. For all you non Kibologists out there, this stands for "You have been
trolled. You have lost. Have a nice day."

PPS. Everyone is a Kibologist.


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From: Anders Haglund
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 30 Jun 1999 12:36:58
Message: <377a47aa@news.povray.org>
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.
>
> This would not prevent the use of the other types of shapes, as all of the
> other shapes can be created from these basic types using only the
> 'intersection', 'union', and 'inverse' keywords.

What ever you are smoking you should quit using it...

/Anders


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From: Jeff Lee
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 30 Jun 1999 15:20:34
Message: <377a6e02@news.povray.org>
7no### [at] ezwvcom (Glen Berry) wrote:
> <mar### [at] gtenet> wrote:
>
>>I just had an idea for an improvement to the POV-Ray scene language:
>
> Incidently, for a "modest" proposal, this sounds pretty radical to me.

It's an allusion to Jonathan Swift's 1729 treatise, the full title of
which was "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People
from Being a Burden to their Parents or the Country".

Swift's proposal was also satire.


-- 
Jeff Lee         shi### [at] gatenet         http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/


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From: Peter Popov
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 30 Jun 1999 15:53:27
Message: <377a61e1.3242831@204.213.191.228>
On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 01:59:46 -0400, "Mark Wagner"
<mar### [at] gtenet> wrote:

Pretty Swift-styled, no? :)


Peter Popov
ICQ: 15002700


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From: Vahur Krouverk
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 1 Jul 1999 07:39:22
Message: <377B538A.6D536DE8@fv.aetec.ee>
Ron Parker wrote:
> 
> 
> And while we're at it, let's get rid of area_light, since you can fake it with
> a grid of point light sources.  
No, you can't. Using area_light affects only the way, how shadows are
calculated, object's illumination is same as with one light source. I
didn't knew it before and I wanted to use area_light for rendering
lightning from computer screen. No matter how many lights I specified
for grid, object's illumination was still same. Only RTFM helped me out
and I created grid of point lights instead.


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From: Ron Parker
Subject: Re: A modest proposal
Date: 1 Jul 1999 09:31:22
Message: <377b6daa@news.povray.org>
On Thu, 01 Jul 1999 14:39:54 +0300, Vahur Krouverk wrote:
>Ron Parker wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> And while we're at it, let's get rid of area_light, since you can fake it with
>> a grid of point light sources.  
>No, you can't. Using area_light affects only the way, how shadows are
>calculated, object's illumination is same as with one light source.

I actually knew that when I wrote it, but since I consider that "feature"
of area lights to be broken, I ignored it. :)


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