In article <01c0559a$50a837a0$357889d0@daysix>, "H. E. Day" 
<Pov### [at] aolcom> wrote:

> This system is based on z-buffer rendering, but I don't know if it 
> could be appiled to Pov.

Probably not. By "z-buffer rendering", you probably mean a scan-line 
algorithm which would be very difficult or impossible to apply to POV, 
which is a pure raytracer. Maybe it could be done with a specialized 
media type...but it is either make a huge number of hair objects that 
chew up your memory, or generate them on the fly which means lots of 
repeated calculations and a much longer rendering time. The scanline 
algorithm can generate each hair one at a time and draw it on the image, 
using the z-buffer to make sure the ones in front cover the ones in 
back. POV would have to do this *per ray*, sometimes multiple times per 
pixel, and calculate the intersection of the ray with each hair in the 
area. Not impossible, but it would be nothing like the algorithm they 
used. Oh, and you *did* notice the "rediculously cheap" price of $285, 
didn't you?

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

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