Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   There's nothing really strange about solid meshes which do not form a
> closed surface, as long as the inside_vector is defined properly.
>
>   Sure, you'll get odd behavior sometimes, but so you do with other solid
> primitives which are not closed surfaces, such as planes and heightfields.
> (I assume that many povray users don't realize the heightfields *are* solid
> and can be used in CSG. Everything under the heightfield is considered to
> be inside. The same goes for planes.)
>
>   If you have a planar mesh, then simply define an inside_vector for it which
> is perpendicular to its surface, like you would do with a plane. This way one
> side of the mesh will be inside and the other outside, exactly like with a
> plane.
>
> --
>                                                           - Warp

Thanks for the explanation!

Since we're discussing it further, I'm curious what the rationale is behind
having an inside *vector* for a closed surface. To me, it seems that a vector
by itself wouldn't be sufficient to contain all the information necessary to
define what lies inside and outside of the surface. Could you explain how it
works?

-Mike

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