Christian Froeschlin <chr### [at] chrfrde> wrote:
> Neat! I take it these images are essentially an exorbitant
> number of spheres around externally generated data points?

Exactly right. :) (See my other post for my somewhat hacky workflow)

The data files vary in size from a few 100k for the thin spindly ones, up to
20MB+ for the more voluminous ones. Luckily even the vast ones are pretty quick
to produce from just the equation coefficient data. The slowest part appears to
be writing the data file!

> I wondered if it's a blob but I thought some transitions
> didn't quite look like it, although it's hard to tell
> with the small object size. If it's spheres it might
> be worth to try a blob for faster rendering.

I tried blobs, but they turn out to be many times slower for this case. These do
use radiosity and multiple area_lights, after all. With antialiasing off, they
render in a couple of minutes (parsing can be longer!). With AA on, an hour or
so.

Actually I quite like the expanded-polystyrene/gritty look that bare spheres
produce!

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