In article <3a9d4d12@news.povray.org>, "Rune" <run### [at] inamecom> 
wrote:

> > In this case, they could be a very useful memory enhancement,
> > since not all particles will use the same amount of memory.
> And why would types be the best solution to this problem?

If you are aware of a better way, say so!
It should be possible to store only position, velocity, other basic 
information common to all particles, a bit field to define which 
features are used, and an array that has a different length depending on 
these features, handling all the memory myself...but that would be very 
difficult, bug-prone, and difficult to maintain, as well as possibly 
platform-dependant and difficult and time-consuming to code in the first 
place, with little benefit. Having specialized types of particles is the 
easiest and most flexible optimization.


> > particles used for different purposes use a different set of
> > features, and so a type of particle that only uses a subset
> > of those won't waste memory on the unused parameters.
> 
> Make it possible to enable/disable the individual features. That's more
> flexible than using types.

You *can* enable/disable individual features. There are just specialized 
types of particles available with specific feature sets.


> Oh, so 3 of the types are just specific optimisations. That's sounds 
> better. But still, why can't the user just disable all features that 
> he doesn't need and save memory that way?

Because some memory still has to be allocated for storage of data for 
those features.
Anyway, I may never add the additional types, things will just be set up 
so they can be added if necessary later. I will be developing the 
features in the "generic" type first, and specialize when memory usage 
becomes a problem or a radically different behavior is added.

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

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