Cousin Ricky wrote:
> The blue and gold are my high school alma mater's colors.  Sorry, no kitchen
> probe.
> 
> Lessons learned:
> 
> - Higher order polynomials are very sensitive to floating point error.  Use
>   isosurfaces instead.
> 
> - Isosurfaces are slow.  Use higher order polynomials instead.
> 
> - Counterintuitively, applying split_union off to the entire object slowed
>   down rendering by an order of magnitude.
> 
> - Applying split_union off to Round_Box_Union and Round_Cylinder_Union (and
>   to similar custom-written macros) cut rendering times in half.
> 
> - Area_light can be interminable.  This image was first rendered without
>   area lights.  The shadows of the handle and reflective sphere were done
>   in partial renders, then patched into the main image.

Fantastic!  Love the model and the concept.  Regarding isosurfaces, you 
may want to check out the isosurface approximation macro by Kevin Loney, 
  Jaap Frank, and Tor Olav Kristensen.  The latest version I know of was 
posted to this message:
   http://news.povray.org/47cc76fd%40news.povray.org

I've used it a couple times quite recently with excellent results.  Once 
you have an isosurface as you like it, you can have the macro make it 
into a mesh.  Then just use the mesh, which is quite fast to render. 
Its allowed me use some surfaces which I wasn't going to because they 
were just too slow (especially when I needed to render over and over.)

-- 
-The Mildly Infamous Blue Herring

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