John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Sure you can.  You have POV-Ray render the height_field with a gradient
> texture running from rgb <0,0,0> to rgb <1,1,1>, with the hf_gray
> setting on.  The high parts of the height_field are white, and the low
> parts are black.  The height_field is saved as a picture in the render
> output file.
>
But won't the image file need to be converted back into a mesh at parse
time?

Just to clarify, I have 5000x5000 pixel png image that I have generated in
another program. When POV-Ray parses my scene it spends 5-10 seconds
processing the image, converting it into a mesh (which is what I believe
height_field does). Would this approach actually speed things up in my
case?
>
> If the original poster is generating a large height field from a
> function or pigment pattern (which I did for a recent IRTC entry), he
> can try breaking up the height_field into several smaller sections (of
> equal precision, or he'll get cracks between sections), and test them to
> see which are on-camera and which aren't.
>
> Regads,
> John

This sounds promising, although most of the height_field is visible
throughout the animation.

Thanks for the suggestions all.

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