In article <3a9d7d1a@news.povray.org>, "Stephen Bell" 
<ste### [at] yahoocom> wrote:

> Would it be possible to render an image of a complex object in a 
> gradient z of white and black, then convert the rendered image into a 
> heightfield that could be used any old way that you wanted?  In 
> short, could you make a reasonable representation of an already 
> created object using a heightfield?

It is possible, with some restrictions. For example, you obviously will 
only get one side of the object, and will miss parts of complex objects 
even if you use two height fields back-to-back. You can get the depth 
image in many ways...use a black-white gradient texture, make everything 
white and use a black fog, or just render it in MegaPOV and use the 
"depth" post_process to retrieve the depth information. Also, the 
resolution of the object will suffer, and there will probably be some 
artifacts...
If mesh objects are fine, you could use MegaPOV, which *can* use meshes 
in difference and intersection.

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

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