Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> George Pantazopoulos <go### [at] tomyaboutpage> wrote:
> > This would have benefits for parallel rendering, since a fast machine could
> > parse the scene, then distribute the pre-parsed scene info to other nodes.
>
>   Parsing the SDL is actually often not the slowest part of the whole
> parsing step. The vast majority of time usually goes into allocating
> and setting up the objects and such.
>
>   The exception is when the SDL has loops which loop a lot, in which
> case a bytecode would speed up this interpretation. (For example, I once
> compared the speed of an SDL code which just prints an ascii mandelbrot
> set to stdout with a completely equivalent Perl code, and the latter was
> approximately 13 times faster. This is because Perl compiles to bytecode
> and then interprets that.)
>
> --
>                                                           - Warp

Would it be possible to imagine such a thing: Develop Java POV-equivalent
classes and an adaptation layer though JNI that would parse Java code and
build the actual POV scene, and then render it by the actual POV engine
(adapted and activated by JNI)? Or am I off-track? It would be possible to
benefit all the power of the java syntax and modularity (and a debugger for
our macros).

Could one imagine something like this

import org.pov.*;
import org.pov.vegetation.*;
import org.pov.hormann.isowood.*;
import org.pov.tran.clouds.*;
import org.pov.someguru.WonderfulFeature4;
import org.pov.cabasson.PoorFeature1;

public class MyScene extends BasicOutDoorScene // Which extends POVScene,
and already has a light_source, a sun, and methods for the seasons and
Earth rotation ....
{
    public static main (int argc, String [] argv)
    {
        SetHandedness(LEFT_HANDEDNESS);

        GlobalSetting gs = new GlobalSettings();
        Radiosity rad = new RadiositySettings(); // Empty constructor with
defaults
        rad.setPretrace(0.04, 0.01);
        rad.setErrorbound(0.6);

        gs.setRadiosity(rad); // Or
gs.setRadiosity(Radiosity.OUT_DOOR_LOW_QUALITY)

        BuildScene();

        Render(640, 480);
    }

    private void BuildScene() // virtual method
    {
        final RADIUS = Double.parseDouble(argv[0]).doubleValue();

        Sphere s = new Sphere (0, RADIUS); // promotion is implemented by
method overloading: could be new Sphere (new Position(0,0,0), RADIUS) or so
....

        s.translate(10, 0, 0);
        s.rotate(-20, 0, 0);
        Pigment p = new Pigment(new Rgbt(1));
        Interior interior = new Interior();
        interior.setIor(Consts.GLASS_IOR);
        interior.setFadeColor(Colors.Blue);
        interior.setFadeDistance(s.getRadius()/2);
        s.setPigment(p);
        s.setInterior(interior);
        set.setPhotons(new ObjectPhotons(...));
        this.add(s);

        Plane ground = new Plane
        (
            y, 0,
            new Pigment
            (
                CHECKER,
                new ColorMap
                (
                    .../...
                ),
                new Turbulence(0.5, 2.0, 0.65, 8)
            )
        )
        ground.getPigment().setWarp(BLACK_HOLE, new Position(...));
        ground.getPigment().scale(2.0);
        this.add(ground);

        /// Etc ....

    }
}

If the java classes are well chosen, I think the java-equivalent syntax of a
scene could be as clear as sdl. Maybe more, when the scene would use lots of
complicated macros. Btw, JNI allows a DLL to call java code, then the sdl
function{} feature would execute at java speed (quite fast with HotSpot).

Then this scene would be rendered with a command line like:

java org.pov.MyScene 1.0

But I would not mind if you called me insane ... cos' I am  already  LOL

    Bruno

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