In article <3c8260ea$1@news.povray.org>, "Shay" <shi### [at] houstonrrcom> 
wrote:

> I'm not sure how PoV does it, but it sure runs a lot faster than my
> smoothing algorithms. I think that the new height-field macros in shapes.inc
> 3.5 use a smoothing algorithm more like the one you used. Haven't tried them
> yet, though. Anyway, they will write out the vertices so you can do whatever
> you like with them.

The macros don't do any sort of normal averaging at all. The method I 
used is actually closer to that used for normal perturbation in 
textures, the  macros sample the function used to generate the height 
field to determine the normal. This might apply to image-based height 
fields as well, if interpolation is used, but I haven't tested it.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>
POV-Ray TAG e-mail: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
TAG web site: http://tag.povray.org/

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