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I hope I'm not retreading old ground here ...
I'm puzzled why 'spline' is used in two radically different senses in POV-Ray.
In something like 'lathe' it is what I regard as its normal use; it produces a
bent object in 3D.
In a #declare I would consider it a lookup function; it produces a float.
I hit this by wanting to include a spline in a lathe, where the spline was
created by another program. I tried
lathe { linear_spline
#include "spline.dat"
}
but that got thrown out with '#' found when '}' expected. Then I saw that I
could #declare a spline, but then found the radically different syntax:
PointCount
Float, <Point> // repeated
versus
<point> // repeated
Obviously it's too late to use a different keyword for the #declared spline, but
maybe it would be possible to have a new object, perhaps called a spline_shape,
that could be #declared:
#declare Fred = spline_shape { SPLINE_TYPE POINTs ... }
and it could be used in things like lathes:
lathe { ... spline_shape { Fred } ... }
This would allow libraries of spline_shapes to be created (table legs, newel
posts, architrave, etc..) and to be referenced, which does not seem to be
possible at present.
Cheers
Chris
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