Thanks a lot, Chris, that's exactly what I was looking for.  I originally
thought a prism would be my best bet, but making the outline seemed combersome,
so that's why I tried the height firls approach.  Now that I know about
InkScape, however, getting was I was after should be a snap.

-T.I.M.



"Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote:
> "this is me" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message
> news:web.48556dd8c23a6d99bae00d80@news.povray.org...
> > What would be the best way to achieve the following:
> >
> > Take your average cookie cutter, for example, and instead of it being made
> > of a
> > thin band of metal, assume it's made of something thicker, so now what you
> > have
> > is an extruded object with a thick cookie cutter outline.  I figured the
> > best
> > way to go about making this in POV was to draw the thing in a drawing
> > program,
> > and simply fill the interior with a gray color and the border with white.
> > I
> > then saved it as a PNG with a black matte around the whole picture.  In
> > POV, I
> > used the PNG in a height field, and set the water level to 10/256 so the
> > black
> > matte would be ignored.  So there it was, a pretty good rendered version
> > of
> > what I had in mind.  Now here's the kicker.  My goal was to make this
> > thing
> > pretty relfective - chrome-like - so I made those changes and rerendered.
> > I
> > noticed the front face of the object reflected real nice, but when I
> > rotated it
> > over to see what the side surfaces looked like, things wheren't so good -
> > it
> > wasn't mirror-like.  I guess I was seeing all the triangles that made up
> > the
> > height field.  So the question is:  How *do* you make an extruded object
> > that
> > looks like it was carved out of polished chrome?
> >
>
> It sounds to me like you're describing the sort of shape that POV-Ray prism
> objects create.
>
> The prism object takes an outline that you can make as sophisticated as you
> like and extrudes it upwards by a specified thickness. I've copied an
> example below that draws a humpback bridge symbol.
>
> This symbol was drawn in 2D using Inkscape, which is an open source scalable
> vector graphics editor. Inkscape can save shapes directly as POV-Ray prism
> objects. It also has a nifty 'Trace Bitmap' function, so if you've got the
> shape in another format with a clearly defined edge, it's easy to convert
> into a vector graphic.
>
> Regards,
> Chris B.
>
>
> camera {location <350,500,200> look_at <350,0, 630>}
> light_source {   <0,800 ,-100>, rgb 1}
>
>
> // HumpbackBridge
> prism {
>     linear_sweep
>     bezier_spline
>     100, //top
>     0, //bottom
>     56, //nr points
>     /*   0*/ <421.528910, 558.862183>, <421.528910, 558.862183>,
> <421.799480,525.781453>, <421.799480,525.781453>,
>     /*   1*/ <421.799480, 525.781453>, <421.799480, 525.781453>,
> <518.970840,525.781453>, <518.970840,525.781453>,
>     /*   2*/ <518.970840, 525.781453>, <518.970840, 525.781453>,
> <519.220840,586.629373>, <519.220840,586.629373>,
>     /*   3*/ <519.220840, 586.629373>, <483.231220, 585.909583>,
> <470.296890,590.384053>, <459.500000,596.862183>,
>     /*   4*/ <459.500000, 596.862183>, <448.703110, 603.520263>,
> <440.972950,619.005923>, <416.500000,628.723123>,
>     /*   5*/ <416.500000, 628.723123>, <407.503730, 632.424843>,
> <394.248040,634.849163>, <384.375000,634.849163>,
>     /*   6*/ <384.375000, 634.849163>, <374.502200, 634.849163>,
> <362.213520,632.380853>, <353.781250,629.083023>,
>     /*   7*/ <353.781250, 629.083023>, <329.308300, 619.365823>,
> <321.578130,603.520263>, <310.781250,596.862183>,
>     /*   8*/ <310.781250, 596.862183>, <299.984360, 590.384053>,
> <285.579210,585.909583>, <249.589580,586.629373>,
>     /*   9*/ <249.589580, 586.629373>, <249.589580, 586.629373>,
> <249.599220,525.781453>, <249.599220,525.781453>,
>     /*  10*/ <249.599220, 525.781453>, <249.599220, 525.781453>,
> <347.505460,525.781453>, <347.505460,525.781453>,
>     /*  11*/ <347.505460, 525.781453>, <347.505460, 525.781453>,
> <347.483980,558.862183>, <347.483980,558.862183>,
>     /*  12*/ <347.483980, 558.862183>, <350.104080, 576.560923>,
> <366.965320,590.405153>, <384.750000,590.045263>,
>     /*  13*/ <384.750000, 590.045263>, <403.615460, 590.225193>,
> <419.068630,574.942913>, <421.528910,558.862183>
>   texture {
>     pigment {color rgb <1,1,0>}
>
>     finish {reflection 0.9}
>   }
> }

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