POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.unofficial.patches : Regression tests for POV development : Re: Regression tests for POV development Server Time
2 Sep 2024 12:14:25 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Regression tests for POV development  
From: Mark Gordon
Date: 10 Jan 2000 23:24:51
Message: <387AB0CC.63C8EFF1@mailbag.com>
> Perhaps I am missing something here Nathan but there are already example
> scenes provided with the official distribution that cover all of it's
> features and the majority of these do render quite fast. Perhaps what
> you are asking for is scenes the cover several of the features in one
> multifunctional file ?

I've been using various modified versions of allscene.sh (in the Unix
versions) to do this.  I use effectively the same script for MegaPov. 
At some point I'll probably add a bunch of scenes from the IRTC CD's to
those I test, as well as some that were released in previous versions. 
I've also considered that such a large number of scenes of medium
resolution might be useful as a replacement for the somewhat dated
povbench benchmark.

> I also pose the same questions that Ron raised concerning how you will
> evaluate the results. The more features you illustrate in a single
> image the harder it is to evaluate minor programming problems because
> scale has a tendancy to minimize visible defects. Single feature scenes
> generaly have the example shown up close in detail increasing the chance
> of catching a defect. You might get around this by rendering at higher
> resolutions but the defeats your need for fast rendering times.

There are two ways I do this: rendering a bunch of stuff with low
resolution just to see whether it works (I've known the render to fail,
and I've known the render to hang).  Running allscene.sh on my machine
typically takes around 25 minutes.  Other methods involve rendering at
larger resolution (over a period of days) and visually eyeballing for
unusual artifacts.  I've seen all the scenes in the standard
distribution enough to have some idea if something goes completely
screwy, and I also have "canonical" high-resolution versions saved on my
hard drive.  The MegaPov example scenes are not so familiar.

> What is regression testing ?

Running through the full set of tests for the sake of thoroughness,
sometimes defined as having a special emphasis on those tests that
previously revealed bugs.

-Mark Gordon


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