Matthew Pace <mat### [at] lycoscom> wrote:
> >   How about adding "hollow" to the sphere?

> Thanks.  I knew it would be something stupid.

  It's not stupid.
  In my opinion it's more like a design flaw which is there for historical
reasons.

  Firstly, the keyword itself is misleading and causes a lot of confusion
(people use it for the wrong reason in places where there's absolutely
no reason to use it, and when you really need to use it (like in this
case), it's very difficult to figure out). A better keyword would be,
for example, "allow_media".

  Secondly, "hollow" (or better "allow_media") should be *on* by default
if the object has an interior with a media (and off by default for objects
without media defined in their interior). It's extremely unusual to define
a media for an object and not wanting it to show up (if you really want
it to behave like this, you could write "hollow off" explicitly).

  Thirdly, the "hollow" ("allow_media") functionality should perhaps be
extended so that you could allow the media of the object itself to appear
inside of the object, but disallow any external media to show up inside
this object. This way you could have an object with its own media and which
does not allow any other media inside it (a glass ball with variable
coloration inside it is a good example: Even though it has a variable
coloration thorough its entire volume, which is achievable with media,
it still doesn't show eg. fog inside it because it's solid glass).

-- 
#macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
[1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
-1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

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