I'm attaching a reduced and untested example of what I meant...  I put it in
a macro because I think I was wrong in something I said before.  The file is
re-read each time the macro is called from another file which is less than
efficient but makes me think it probably wouldn't take all that memory.  It
kindof sounds like you already have the ability to create custom
partial-library libraries save or dispose of at will, so I'm a little less
clear on what you're after.  Anyway there's a lot you can do and different
ways you can do it using the string functions and file i/o of POV-Ray.
Charles

"Andycadd" <And### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> I am intrigued with this idea, you are saying that the entire file need not
> be loaded but somehow "preparsed" within a macro loop of some sort, please
> explain this to me.  SDL is not my forte.  Currently I use autocad to model
> and a custom Autolisp file to access the geometry and translate it into POV
> and INC files.  I am considering pulling the texture file together with a
> string match from a text file, hence writing a texture file definition
> library file each time I access the geometry of the model.  Your idea would
> mean the library file could remain complete, in fact I could load all the
> texture libraries I have and only keep the textures I need.  Please if you
> have any details of this lemme know.  I could very easily change my code to
> lsit the names of the materials I wish to load.
>
> Is there open-file and write-line keywords within the SDL I could just use
> them to write an abbreviated texture file of what I need.
>
> Right now I use the custom tool in Autocad to write a group of includes and
> a single pov file, then in povray I click render and that is it, no editing
> or changing of anything, all the standard settings are prewritten by the
> tool.
>
>
> "Charles C" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> > A simple & compatible-for-all approach (because it's SDL), less the details:
> >
> > I bet you could re-do each library so that within each file, each "entry" is
> > a #case within a giant #switch.  Then if each entry contained strings of SDL
> > rather than straight SDL you could easily automate building up a smaller
> > file's worth of textures or what-have-you.  (Yes that's treating a file as
> > a macro rather than defining the switch in a macro since we wouldn't want
> > to keep most of it in memory, and then running through it N times to cover
> > however many items we're picking out.)
> >
> > Charles
> >
> > "Andycadd" <And### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> > > Has anyone created a "pack and go" style tool for povray?

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Attachments:
Download 'shortend materials example.zip' (1 KB)