On Thu, 30 Mar 2000 00:37:42 +1000, Nigel Stewart wrote:
>	The basic idea is to use XML as a way of exchanging
>	a POV scene between applications or tools without
>	the complexity of parsing and emitting POV script.
>	(Parsing in particular is difficult to do) 

Yep. I can whip up a perl script which makes quite complex changes to an
XML file in a rather short time (the parser already exists, but I even
wrote my own (not quite conforming) in two or three evenings). 

I never considered writing a POV parser in perl. It would be a major
project and by the time it is finished, POV 4.0 would be out and I could
start implementing all the new features ...

I haven't looked at parpov yet. If it really is a good, stable POV
parser and if it actively maintained, it could be used in a standalone
POV-Script -> POV-XML translator. The reverse direction is trivial.

A standalone translator would be good enough for me (I render szenes by
typing "make" anyway, and one rule more in my Makefiles doesn't matter),
and it would have several advantages:

* Independent releases from Povray. Code and Features can change as fast
  as they need to, competing designs can exist at the same time. I think
  this is important during early development.

* No POVray license. The POVray license is IMHO overly restrictive. I
  would be very reluctant to put any of my code under that license.

* "One Tool for every job". I don't really see why POVray should be able
  to read a load of different file formats. If it can read both
  POV-Script and POV-XML, the next person will want it to read VRML or
  DXF.

	hp

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