"Mark M. Wilson" <mmw### [at] ncsldcrstatencus> wrote in message
news:3B6585B5.C69CEC1B@ncsl.dcr.state.nc.us...
> Could someone explain them to a new user, not just to POV-Ray, but
> raytracing and any type of computer graphics at all? In more-or-less
> plain English?
> --Mark M. Wilson

Probably the simplest iso-surface is a plane. The function for it would be y -
i.e. "create a surface at all points where y=0"

A sphere is still pretty straight forward: sqr(x) + sqr(y) + sqr(z) - 1, i.e.
"create a surface where the square of x plus the square of y plus the square of
z minus 1 = 0".

If you're a math-idiot like me, the best way to understand why this works is to
do the math on a few easy points, for example (1,0,0), (-1,0,0), (0,1,0), etc.

Post a reply to this message