In article <36bd807b.4891785@news.povray.org> , pet### [at] usanet (Peter
Popov) wrote:
> I know, that's why I am suggesting an estimate to be made based on
> both speed reports. The mosaic preview will be the most accurate, but
> then again, even a faked estimate is better than none at all, right?

Well, for experienced users that migth be the case, but I got horrified when
thinking of all the new users posting bug reports saying that POV-Ray is
slower than it say, and then they ask what is wrong or even make bug reports
out of it...

> Antialiasing takes longer on smaller images if you account for
> samples/pixel. AT least that's what my practice shows. I usually

Yes, that is possible. For my typical scenes (only sometimes rendered using
Windows, most of the time on the Mac, but that should make little difference
for the estimate) it comes out well for me that way. (Maybe I should add
that I don't run POV-Ray with full priority (I use the defaults) to be able
to use the computer during very long renders (e.g. read e-mail)).

> render a 160x120 no AA, multiply the render time accordingly, multiply
> it by [1+AA/3] and add it to the parsing time. Usually works pretty
> fine, but why should *I* bother if the box can do it for me?

Interesting formula, I will try it for my next full priority render.

> Come to think of it, can antialiasing be made *after* the image has
> been traced? I.e., scan the pic and apply aa where needed. This has

It is possible, but all first run pixel values would need temporary
storage...

> several advantages over the current implementation:
> 1) instead of the up-and-left-only aa check all adjacent pixels will
> be checked

Hmm, I don't understand what you mean by "up-and-left-only aa check".

> 2) one can see if aa is needed at all. Then one can do a pass with a
> large threshold (0.5 for eg.) and lower it until the result is
> satisfactory. If parse time is much lower than render time, this is a
> pretty time-saving approach

Are you sure you know how the adaptive anti-alias in POV-Ray works? This
sounds like you want to do it the same way :-)   Maybe I misunderstand
you!?!

> 3) dual processors or two computers can be easily made to work in
> tandem with the field interlace option (two pov instances in the first
> case), then one of them will only do the aa pass.

This would be possible without the AA option as well...


     Thorsten

Post a reply to this message