This brings up a good questions that I've been wondering about.  Does OpenGL
do realtime CSG?  As far as I know, OpenGL just processes triangle meshes,
not true mathematical objects of the type pov uses.  You would have to
convert your objects to meshes, crunch out the csg's on your processor, and
then send them to the card for display.  That would really defeat the
purpose of pov, since it tries to avoid meshes.  But I really don't know a
lot about OpenGL.  Does it have built in functionality for CSG?

Ken


George Hunt wrote in message <346bf5b9.95268263@news.stmuc.com>...
>On Thu, 13 Nov 1997 11:47:12 -0800, "Ken Cecka" <cec### [at] televarmoc>
>wrote:
>
>>Since OpenGL is a rendering accelerator, not a ray-tracing accelerator, it
>>is only useful for preview mode in a modeler.  Pov on it's own isn't a
>>modeler, just a ray-tracing engine.  Several of the modelers currently
>>available for POV already use OpenGL for preview though.  Check out
sPatch,
>>Breeze, PovSB.  I think they all have OpenGL preview, and I'm sure there
are
>>others.
>>
>>Ken
>
>But Ken,
>    Many people (Dan Farmer for instance, one of the best and best
>known POV-Ray artists ever) don't use modellers at all (or very
>little)  They do in fact use POV-Ray test renders, and a bit of trial
>and error, to 'model' their scenes.  I would say that POV-Ray would be
>all the better if it DID have an option to represent the scene via an
>OpenGL preview.  Then, when you get things in the correct positions
>and get your CSG's etc. correct, you could switch back to a raytraced
>preview so that you can see how the more complex textures are doing.
>
>
>-----------
>George Hunt --- Raytracer Obsessivo
>http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/lightsword
>102### [at] compuservecom
>-----------

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