"jr" <cre### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> hi,
>
> "Chris R" <car### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> > Despite the fact that I've been playing with v3.7 and v3.8 for several years
> > now, I just discovered the dictionary feature in POV-Ray.
>
> </grin>
>
>
> > ... But, is there any practical advantage to using a mixed array over a
> > dictionary?  Or is it just a matter of personal syntactic taste?
>
> "horses for courses"..  one neat thing with a dictionary is that POV-Ray allows
> choice of syntax.  while I too like (and prefer) the a.b.c notation, using the
> array notation does have an advantage because the key in a["b"] can be a
> variable.  (I use 'array mixed' mostly when thinking "list").
>
>
> btw the heightfield image ?  ~186 seconds per pixel.. :-)
>
>
> regards, jr.

I noted the two notations for dictionaries as well.  I've found some cases
already where it would be useful to use the array notation.

As for the heightfield image, that was after taking a bunch of hints from others
in this newsgroup about how to speed up renders, (e.g. reducing my default
max_trace_level from 30 to 10!).  It doesn't seem that radiosity computations
were significant, so I'm assuming it still all has to do with the vast number of
reflections in a turbulent water scheme with a highly turbulent surrounding
terrain.

-- Chris R.

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