Margus Ramst wrote:
> 
> In most cases it would give a general time frame, but an experienced user can
> probably guess it more accurately himself. Extreme cases are not rare in POV
> renderings. A small part of the image may take up most of the time. Linear PPS
> calculation (or even one based on previous data) can _not_ take this into
> account. And POV can't predict the number of rays it has to trace for a
> particular pixel or line.
> Like I said, a progressive histogram approach might do the trick. It would hold
> the added advantage of showing a progressively refined preview of the entire
> scene before rendering is done. I would certainly consider this an useful
> option.
> Adding render time calculation based on time spent & PPS should be trivial. I
> can only guess, but perhaps the very reason it hasn't been done already is the
> inaccuracy of this method in raytraced scenes.
> 
> Margus
> 
It could be optional and it doesn't have to be very accurate (though the
accuracy would become better towards the end).
Imagine this: you set up a scene and start rendering. POV starts parsing; in
some cases this may take a while. You walk away, come back after some time,
check how far the pic is rendered, have a peek at the PPS. There's no way you
can tell how long it is going to take to finish the render (I'm talking about
non-trivial rendering times here) as long as you don't know how long the parsing
took. 
Also, as I said in an earlier message, it would be nice to have _some_ idea of
what to expect, especially in a rendering that takes several days (like in 0
PPS-scenes or animations). 
I didn't say it would be accurate, I just said it would be nice to have an
indication, an estimate (which is, by definition, inaccurate, isn't it?)
I just have the problem I'm not experienced enough to be able to outguess even a
rough estimate by the engine.

Bye,

Remco

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