Would it be possible to create a patch for Povray that would allow it to
turn it into a relativistic raytracer?

In case you don't already know, a relativistic raytracer is able to make
calculations for the finite speed of light as happens in the real world
(unlike the infinite speed used in normal raytracing). This allows to see
the weird effects that occur at velocities approaching the speed of light
(abberation, doppler shift, and increase in brightness in the direction of
motion).

There is a relativistic raytracer called Backlight, which uses a variation
of the Povray scene description language. The problem with it is its
features are very limited, and it is _extremely_ picky about syntax. One
missed comma, and it won't render, do the same in Povray, and it will
usually still be happy to render. Another problem with Backlight involves
making animations, you have to put hundreds of cameras in the scene - one
per frame of the animation.

Anybody think this could be done by modifying the Povray source code?

Rohan _e_ii

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"Rohan Bernett" <rox### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:web.3de6ef98c20e2bf3c571aa6c0@news.povray.org...
> Would it be possible to create a patch for Povray that would allow it to
> turn it into a relativistic raytracer?

Practically impossible. You would be much better off writing a relativistic
raytracer from scratch. POV is big and complex, you would have to change
pretty much everything, and not everything it does would even make sense in
a relativistic raytracer. It isn't something you could just patch into POV.
It would be much more productive to work on Backlight instead: it already
does the basics.

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Rohan Bernett wrote:

> Would it be possible to create a patch for Povray that would allow it to
> turn it into a relativistic raytracer?

I seem to remember that there already is one, but for one of the older
versions (2.? I think)
I can't remember the link of find it on povray.org - Ken?

Bye,
Pabs

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Pabs wrote:
> 
> Rohan Bernett wrote:
> 
> > Would it be possible to create a patch for Povray that would allow it to
> > turn it into a relativistic raytracer?
> 
> I seem to remember that there already is one, but for one of the older
> versions (2.? I think)

I don't recall one ever created for POV-Ray.

> I can't remember the link of find it on povray.org - Ken?

You are probably thinking of -
http://www.anu.edu.au/physics/Searle/Obsolete/Raytracer.html

-- 
Ken Tyler

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> You are probably thinking of -
> http://www.anu.edu.au/physics/Searle/Obsolete/Raytracer.html

Nah - it was definately a POV patch
I found it thanks to google -
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~andrbh/raytrace/raytrace.html
Now why didn't I do that before?

Bye,
Pabs

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Theres a couple of cool mpg demos at http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~amb/rrt/

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Pabs wrote:
> 
> > You are probably thinking of -
> > http://www.anu.edu.au/physics/Searle/Obsolete/Raytracer.html
> 
> Nah - it was definately a POV patch
> I found it thanks to google -
> http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~andrbh/raytrace/raytrace.html
> Now why didn't I do that before?

I stand corrected. First time I have heard of that patch. So much for knowing
"everything".

-- 
Ken Tyler

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"Christopher James Huff" <cja### [at] earthlinknet> wrote in message
news:3de7034b@news.povray.org...
> "Rohan Bernett" <rox### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
> news:web.3de6ef98c20e2bf3c571aa6c0@news.povray.org...
> > Would it be possible to create a patch for Povray that would allow it to
> > turn it into a relativistic raytracer?
>
> Practically impossible. You would be much better off writing a
relativistic
> raytracer from scratch. POV is big and complex, you would have to change
> pretty much everything, and not everything it does would even make sense
in
> a relativistic raytracer. It isn't something you could just patch into
POV.
> It would be much more productive to work on Backlight instead: it already
> does the basics.
>

Perhaps it's not possible for the reasons you state, but it seems to me that
those effects could be approximated by camera manipulations and a little
post-processing.  Of course, that assumes a static scene where only the
camera is moving relative to the scene.  Obviously, if multiple objects are
moving with different velocity vectors that wouldn't work.

It depends on whether you are trying to approximate relativistic effects or
actually model them.

Rick

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> I stand corrected... So much for knowing "everything".
> --
> Ken Tyler

: ) I think that must be the quote of the month if not year.

JJ
Bye,
Pabs

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In article <3DEB1661.AEA494BD@nospam_zip.to>,
 Pabs <pab### [at] nospam_zipto> wrote:

> Nah - it was definately a POV patch
> I found it thanks to google -
> http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~andrbh/raytrace/raytrace.html
> Now why didn't I do that before?

Huh...it modifies POV-Ray 2.2, quite a bit easier to do than a more 
recent version. I wonder if it does anything more than just changing the 
camera ray directions, or if he had to disable any features...it looks 
like it just adds one camera parameter.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
http://tag.povray.org/

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