Hello All,

For research I'm doing in computer vision, I'm interested in modifying
POVray so that it can output an image that is a depth (i.e.  range)
map of the scene.  In other words what would a laser range-finder
report back when scanning the scene.  I have several questions about
this task.

1. Has this been done?  I'd hate to be replicating someone else's
   work.  I've looked in the obvious places and haven't seen that
   anyone has done this.

2. Is the only way to do this through modifying the source?  I thought
   that there might be some crazy way of implementing this using the
   programming capacities of the scene language, but I can't quite see
   how.

3. Can someone give me a quick roadmap and time estimate for the
   project?  More specifically how long do you think it would take?
   What's the basic approach that you would take?  Do you see any
   obviously difficult stumbling blocks?

   I've looked over the code in render.cpp and it seems like I would
   just need to make an alternate rendering routine that returns
   ranges instead of RGB values.  In other words it doesn't seem like
   it would be terribly difficult because I'd just be combining
   together pieces of code that are already written in a new way.  Am
   I totally off base?

Thanks,
Tal

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Tal wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> For research I'm doing in computer vision, I'm interested in modifying
> POVray so that it can output an image that is a depth (i.e.  range)
> map of the scene.  In other words what would a laser range-finder
> report back when scanning the scene.  I have several questions about
> this task.
> 
> 1. Has this been done?  I'd hate to be replicating someone else's
>    work.  I've looked in the obvious places and haven't seen that
>    anyone has done this.
> 
> 2. Is the only way to do this through modifying the source?  I thought
>    that there might be some crazy way of implementing this using the
>    programming capacities of the scene language, but I can't quite see
>    how.
> 
> 3. Can someone give me a quick roadmap and time estimate for the
>    project?  More specifically how long do you think it would take?
>    What's the basic approach that you would take?  Do you see any
>    obviously difficult stumbling blocks?
> 
>    I've looked over the code in render.cpp and it seems like I would
>    just need to make an alternate rendering routine that returns
>    ranges instead of RGB values.  In other words it doesn't seem like
>    it would be terribly difficult because I'd just be combining
>    together pieces of code that are already written in a new way.  Am
>    I totally off base?
> 
> Thanks,
> Tal

MegaPOV has this feature, and it can also be done with the gradient 
pattern applied to all objects.

i.e. pigment { gradient z scale <1,1,maxrange-minrange> translate 
z*minrange }

-- 
~Mike

Things! Billions of them!

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Tal wrote:
> 
> 1. Has this been done?

Yes.

> 
> 2. Is the only way to do this through modifying the source?

No.

BTW a quick search for 'depth AND image' among other things returns:

http://news.povray.org/povray.advanced-users/thread/<3face2ba$3%40news.povray.org>/
http://news.povray.org/povray.general/thread/<web.41d54aab7cb7473670d1e38f0%40news.povray.org>/
http://news.povray.org/povray.newusers/thread/<3e11fdaa$1%40news.povray.org>/

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Landscape of the week:
http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/ (Last updated 24 Jul. 2005)
MegaPOV with mechanics simulation: http://megapov.inetart.net/

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Tal wrote:
> 2. Is the only way to do this through modifying the source?  I thought
>    that there might be some crazy way of implementing this using the
>    programming capacities of the scene language, but I can't quite see
>    how.

<snip>

This is the wrong group for this question.  This group is for discussion of
the POV-Ray source code.  Questions about using the POV-Ray should be asked
in either povray.general or povray.newusers.

     Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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