In article <397DDEF9.7680CA04@schunter.etc.tu-bs.de>, 
chr### [at] gmxde wrote:

> I thought of storing the data in form of "columns" of variable 
> height, but that's probably very slow and not that easy to handle.  
> Could save a lot of memory when working with high vertical 
> resolution. 

Though not the most efficient method, and mainly useful for 
height-field-like voxel structures, that should be quite possible...


> Sounds much like wavelet-compression, that should also work with 3 
> dimensions, but it's probably quite calculation intensive.  

I don't think this is anything like wavelet compression, which I think 
is based on fourier transforms. I think this would have more in common 
with run-length encoding. Basically, divide the voxel data up into 
cubes. If the voxels in a cube vary by less than a certain amount, the 
resolution within that cube is reduced or the voxels are replaced with a 
single, larger voxel. If more than that amount, all of the data is 
retained, or maybe the cube gets subdivided.
This would definitely be more computationally expensive than 
uncompressed files or your "column" encoding, but could be quite 
efficient for many structures.

-- 
Christopher James Huff - Personal e-mail: chr### [at] maccom
TAG(Technical Assistance Group) e-mail: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
Personal Web page: http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG Web page: http://tag.povray.org/

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