Le 16/09/2012 03:23, clipka a écrit :
> 
> Which begs the question: Would it be worth to use this approximation -
> maybe with a few more steps of newton - in POV-Ray, or at least in an
> experimental patch thereof?


If you consider that:
 1. POV-Ray has currently no requirement on using IEEE-754 float (of
exactly 32 bits)
 2. The FLOAT & other types of POV-Ray are customisable

such approximation would impact:
 * portability (you now MUST have 32 bits floats, nothing else)
 * precision or speed (if you need newton steps... )
 * as black-box magic, it would be a hell to debug if you ever get a
typo on one digit.

I remember a very old port on a M68000 family system, where the float
where natively rather a 48 bits: such trick would ruin such portage.
(48 bits was for every floating point values)

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