My solution is coded entirely in POV 3.1 scene language, because it's quick
to prototype, I hoped I might get all the way, and I don't know any C++. I
can't see how to code the function from the scene language (although it did
give it some thought). There's no reason why, once I've proved the concept,
it could not *very* easily be coded in C++ and built in to a later release
of POV. Many of the features new to POV 3.1 (and perhaps some to the
soon-to-be-released v3.5) bring the scene language closer to a language
proper, say a 4GL. A function that would be useful in this regard,
independent of my requirement, is this 'makestr(ANY_IDENTIFIER)' function
that works like str(FLOAT_IDENTIFIER).

Are you familiar with the POV source and C++, by any chance?

Simon Lemieux <lem### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:39928D21.350E781E@yahoo.com...
> > Since there appears to be no utility for converting from POV-Ray 3.1
scene
> > language to other formats, I have been thinking about how to solve it
myself
> > and I have 99% of a solution. The remaining 1% is a function that
returns
> > the referent of any identifier, no matter what type - string, float,
> > pigment, texture, array etc - as a text string. str(FLOAT_IDENTIFIER)
does
> > this job for floats. I need stranytype(ANY_IDENTIFIER).
> >
> > Since more and more organisations, especially those outside the media
and
> > manufacturing spaces, are beginning to recognise the benefits of
modelling,
> > visualisation, and prototyping, script-based modelling of the sort that
> > POV-Ray does excellently on its own, is going to be more and more
important.
> > I'd love to contribute to a long and happy life for this fine
application.
> >
> > My guess is that, for C++ guru familiar with the POV-Ray source, this
should
> > be pretty straightforward.
>
> Well it should be fairly easy to convert about anything into a string...
>
> But if you developped such an utility, why are you unable to create the
> conversion yourself?
> I mean, it would be fairly easy for you to do it since you know your code,
and
> it would be difficult for me to do it since I don't know your code at
all...
>
> Simon

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