Jaime Vives Piqueres <jai### [at] ignoranciaorg> wrote:

> > Hello,
> >
> > Looking at the messages, I see that there are some specific versions
> > for MAC OS.
> >
> > I am not sure to understand. For MAC OS, I just download the UNIX
> > version, which is the same than the Linux one. Then I compile using
> > the GNU environment, As I'd do if I were working under Linux.
> >
> > Is there a specific version of POVRAY for the Apple LLVM Compiler ?
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Denis
> >
>
>    Just curious... is there any reason why Yvo unofficial version doesn't
> suit your needs? Or you just wanted to build it yourself?
>
> --
> Jaime

Hello,

In fact I wanted to compile it myself because I want to study the code.

I want to study the relation between the parser (that loads the textual
description of the scene) and the renderer (that produces the image).

I imagine, but I need to check, that :
The parser produces some kind of "structured" representation of the scene.
This "structured" representation is then given to the renderer.

In other words, I want to find out if it is easy to separate the parser from the
renderer. I assume it is, since the code seems pretty clean. But I need to look
at it.

I do that because I want to see how difficult it would be to write a binding for
an interpreter such as Python, Perl, PHP or Ruby. That is : replacing the actual
scene description language by another one (ie : Python, Perl, PHP or Ruby).

Why ?

For many reasons.
This would allow the use of big frameworks. For example, I could integrate
functions used to calculate geographic distances in the scene description (ex
for Perl: GIS::Distance). Or I could use POVRAY to generate 3Ds output for
anything (such as : the topology of my IP network).
This would allow the use of sophisticated flow control. I mean : all we have in
modern languages.

Actually I use POVRAY like this :

I write a template of POVRAY file.
Then I write a Perl script that does the "complex calculation" (the "hard
logic"), and fills the template with values. I do that with Perl, because I
don't want to rewrite all the complexes functions that you can find in CPAN (and
the POVRAY scene description language is no good for that).
Then I call POVRAY on the generated POV file.

Best regards,

Denis

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