On Wed, 03 May 2000 07:21:59 -0500, Chris Huff
<chr### [at] yahoocom> wrote:

>This is exactly what is done with my "steps" filter. I multiply the 
>float colors by a certain amount, convert to integer, and then scale 
>back to the original color range. And it is already per-channel, you can 
>have different numbers of steps for each channel.

I had thought that your steps filter might be the same as
posterization, but I was having a little trouble getting your patch to
work reliably at first, and couldn't confirm it right away. Thanks to
you and Nathan, I think I have everything in order now.

I just rendered the steps demo, and it does indeed perform a posterize
function, which brings me to something that I wanted to tell you the
moment I first saw that demo file. Since "steps" is really
"posterize", could I talk you into renaming it "posterize"? I have
three reasons for you to consider renaming it.

First, this has been the traditional name for this effect for several
years. Keeping with tradition avoids confusion and unnecessary
fragmentation of the language. It also simply feels more "correct" to
use the established word, at least to me.

Second, the word "steps" is more likely to appear in someone's POV
file as a variable name or something. Think of while loops, for
example. It would be easy to imagine someone wanting to have a
variable named "steps" to control incrementation of a loop. I can also
imagine someone rendering architecture and wanting to #declare a CSG
construction of a staircase and name it "steps."  How likely is it
that someone would ever use the word "posterize" in a POV script? I
suggest we take the less common word "posterize" and make it a
reserved word, instead of the much more common word "steps." This will
have much less of a potential limiting factor in choosing variable
names.

Third, at the moment there are probably only a very few people playing
with this filter, or even this patch for that matter. Renaming it now
wouldn't have a big impact on "existing scenes" because there would
probably only be a handful of those at the moment. I think that most
people would consider a patch only available in source form as being
"experimental," and wouldn't mind the change.

Thanks,
Glen Berry

( Remove the "7" from 7no### [at] ezwvcom to email me. )

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