Dear Christian,

Thank you for your help. A few comments:

I'm far from an expert on Matlab, but I've used it for many years, and I would
say that the graphics I produce are already pushing the limits as far as what
the pre-packaged software is capable of.

> if you frequently render similar type of graphics but with different
> functions, this will allow you to create a reusable scene that can
> then simply read or include update data files or functions.

This is exactly what I need. I won't be doing many different kinds of scenes but
rather, many different variations of the same scene (with different input
files).

> If you post a sample of your data / function and how you want to
> render it, I'm sure people here will help you get started with a
> basic scene that is suitable for your purposes.

I would be most pleased to take you up on your offer!

I've given as an example the function whose height is given by the real part of
z^(1/3) in the complex plane. However, the trick is that this function is
multi-valued, and so the complete surface must be 'patched together'. Basically,
this is something that's easy to do as data but not so much as a function.

My hope is for some of you in the POV-Ray community can play around with the
data files and show me what POV-Ray is capable of. For example, how easy is it
to create something that looks -as nice- (or even nicer) than what can be
accomplished in just a few lines of Matlab?

I've made things as easy as possible by creating a file directory:
http://www.mediafire.com/?5lb1xpdvflxy6

It includes a pdf file which shows what the data should resemble and what can be
done in Matlab. It also explains the outputs. The zip file contains the data
I've outputted in a variety of formats. This includes:

[mesh_x.dat, mesh_y.dat, mesh_z.dat, mesh_color.dat] These data files describe a
100x300 surface. They were outputted directly from Matlab.

[cubicfun.inc and cubicfun.obj] This is a POV-Ray inc file and also an OBJ file
which was generated with the help of Ankur Pawar's Matlab functions here
(http://sites.google.com/site/workofap/3d/matlab3d) though note that no color
data is provided!

I look forward to seeing what some of you can do with that surface and seeing
what POV-Ray is capable of. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

Post a reply to this message