Nekar Xenos wrote:
> 
> I'm not sure if this would speed things up (maybe someone has already done
> this?) but here's my idea:
> 
> I think it should be possible to write a macro that would take an isosurface
> function and make a low poly mesh from that. You should also then be able to
> alter the quality higher or lower according to your need. The purpose of this
> would be two-fold: Quick preview of isosurfaces and making it possible to export
> iso-surfaces to other 3d formats as a mesh.
> 
> Has any-one done anything like this before?

See:

From: "Mael" <mae### [at] hotmailcom>
Newsgroups: povray.general
Subject: marching cube macro
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 17:00:13 +0200

and also Warp's tesselation patch.  

It is surely not a good way for quick preview renders since generating the
mesh takes quite some time no matter what method you use.

Another problem is that using a method generating meshes with constant
resolution results in incredibly large meshes with high resolutions. 
Algorithms which produce meshes with variable (curvature dependant)
resolution are fairly complicated and usually are quite slow too.

Christoph

-- 
Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde>
IsoWood include, radiosity tutorial, TransSkin and other 
things on: http://www.schunter.etc.tu-bs.de/~chris/

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