Well, back to the problem at hand.
I was a believer, for a brief moment or two, that the ior was being dealt with 
correctly according to the laws of POV-Ray then it occured to me...
Why was I never seeing same-such effect when using the other primitives, ie. a 
sphere, causing all "outside" areas to be affected with its ior?
I tried replacing the plane in my example with one and it does not cause the 
refraction to exist outwardly. Who already could have guessed that one? Most 
anybody I suppose.
Now see how the plane is awkwardly doing something other objects do not?
That means a plane (or other things too?) is not following the same principal. 
I understood the nature of them already, that they have inside and outside. 
Guess that's why this caught my attention so much, if other shapes in csg (or 
not, remember my example uses none) did this it would be a disaster since many 
csg-created objects use an inverse to get the right construction.
A plane *is* capable of csg too, as many may know, by keeping the 
inside/outside in mind, same goes for all the other primitives capable of csg.
Okay, carry on...
Btw, it's nice to have people here who can discuss this stuff.
Thanks all.

Message <3666E357.4309B895@pacbell.net>, Ken  typed...
>
>Nieminen Mika wrote:
>
>>   I have frequently seen people confused with the plane object. They
>> obviously think about it as a 2D sheet, with no inside part, with both
>> sides as outside.
>
>Agreed on this one. And what makes it even more confusing isif you apply a 
solid
>texture to the plane and your camera is on
>the inside you can still see your scene clearly. Not true though
>if you put your camera inside a solid textured box. This makes
>it hard to grasp the relationships.
>
>>   I'm not saying I understand everyting, of course :)
>
>Yowser. And I thought I was alone in the dark.
>
>>   I'm still a little confused with the 'clipped_by' statement. I don't
>> know, if you clip off a part of an object, where is the inside and
>> where the outside of the object, specially at the hole. This will affect
>> only the media inside the object, of course. I have never tested it. Anyone
>> know something about this?
>
>That is an interesting point. I have a similar confusion about what
>happens when you declare a 2D box like :
>
>box{<-1,-1,0>,<1,1,0>}
>
>This will render a single face of a 1x1x0(?) box. Where is the inside
>and outside of such an object ? If a take six such 2D faces and
>construct a cube from them using a union would I have to apply
>the hollow state to get media to work inside ?
>
>The same with disks. Is there a surface normal for the disk object
>and how does it effect media ?
>
>Stay tune for the answers to these questions and more in next weeks
>dramatic episode of "All my Renders" ! Immediatly following our
>show "One Life to Raytrace".
>
>An now a word from our sponsers...
>
>Ken Tyler
>

-- 
 omniVERSE: beyond the universe
  http://members.aol.com/inversez/POVring.html
=Bob

Post a reply to this message