POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.advanced-users : Random variation : Re: Random variation Server Time
29 Jul 2024 08:17:32 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Random variation  
From: Christopher James Huff
Date: 26 Sep 2002 11:50:23
Message: <chrishuff-102171.11474926092002@netplex.aussie.org>
In article <3d93103a@news.povray.org>,
 "Andrew Coppin" <orp### [at] btinternetcom> wrote:

> It's not earth-shatteringly important for me to find out the answer,
> I'm just curiose ;-)

Hmm, that's a good question...true "random" numbers would have a minimum 
difference of 0. Given the finite number of values of computer math, it 
would have a small but finite probability of happening to consecutive 
values. However, it might be impossible for the algorithm POV uses to 
generate identical consecutive values...
As a wild guess, I'd say the minimum difference without being identical 
between any two values (not just consecutive values) would be 1/(~2 or 4 
billion), depending on whether POV uses a signed or unsigned long scaled 
down to a double in the [0, 1] range. In other words, too small to worry 
about if you are concerned about any kind of "stepping".

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
http://tag.povray.org/


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