hi,

just a couple of thoughts.

"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> ...
> If some of the things that are currently in #include files could be implemented
> in source, that would be great.   The first thing one learns about detachable
> parts (like include files) is that they get lost.
> [observe how often people are looking for a lost Colefax or other include file]

www.povray.org/resources/ should be used for such (important) contributor's
files imo, the site seems the "natural" place to look for stuff.  also, it is
not good advertising for POV-Ray to see the out-of-date links collection.


> Following up on that, I've been mulling the idea of building a large include
> file that will hold most everything I use, without having to remember the
> filenames and use multiple include files.
> This would require parsing the whole file, and I'd need a way to only store in
> memory the parts that I wanted (#if ought to git 'er done)
> With regard to the parsing, could something like #exit be implemented to abort
> parsing an #include file early?   Sort of like #break?
> (Also, is there a file type or structure that would allow
> skipping/jumping/indexing a larger file?)

occurs to me that you could have a simple "meta" file with conditionals, one per
..inc (or grouped), and use a corresponding set of 'Declare's in an .ini file to
activate the ones needed.  would that do?

> ...
> Just having a point{} object would be limited, but having a pointcloud{} object
> would work very nicely, I think.
> This would probably be/work exactly like an array, and just be a list of one or
> more points that can take advantage of the brief and simple syntax of rotate,
> translate, scale, etc.

how about (mis)using the DF3 format?  if one could put that data to use in
contexts other than an interior..

> ...
> Just emptying my brain onto the forum for the record.

concur with TdG, good you did.  :-)


regards, jr.

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