Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> What is missing is the internal structure of minerals,
> especially in the ears. I am pondering the problem

Yeah - it's the old "POV-Ray renders _surfaces_ not volumes" problem/trap that i
fall into from time to time.

> and think into the direction of a media,

I think that might lead to an unintentional detour: the pursuit of a PhD in
media

> or maybe, a special kind of isosurface (I am thinking of my rings of Saturn in
2017),

That has potential, as if it were done right, you'd have a lot of separate
surfaces, but then you'd have spaces in between - no idea if that would be
problematic or not.  You'd also have to match up the texture with the isosurface
domains.

> or again, a rand_in_object fill with small particles.

That would be super tricky and take for-ever.
Exposure of the set of points for crackle to SDL, allowing for "one-pass"
placement of "particles" would be what we'd need, and I can still see that as
being "slow" - but probably acceptable to achieve such a difficult effect.

Sam Benge used Voro++, and I'm wondering if maybe there might be an external
library that could generate a Voronoi subdivision of a volume.  Though I don't
like that idea very much.

I've taken several looks at the source code for generating the crackle pattern
over the years, and it's long, somewhat complicated, and would be a project on
its own to convert to SDL.

I'm in favor of the isosurface idea, as it seems to be the fastest, most
reliable, and most direct approach.

RL has me running around doing non-POV-Ray stuff (Damn you, RL!) so I just have
less time than usual...   :(

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