In article <mbd### [at] linuxlocal>,
 Felix Wiemann <Fel### [at] gmxnet> wrote:

> Why isn't that possible? Where is the difference to storing mesh data? 
> (This is not a feature request, just a question :) )

It is possible, it would just require redesigning and rewriting the 
code. Since a rewrite is planned already for POV-Ray 4.0, there isn't 
much point in doing it for 3.5.
One of the possible problems is that the parts of a union are 
individually transformable objects, while mesh data is a bunch of points 
that are never changed. When transforming a union, I think the current 
version of POV transforms the individual objects contained in it. 
Storing a reference to the data would mean no union could modify the 
data, so would have to store its own transforms. Slightly slower.
A better solution might be a proxy or clone object that is simply a 
wrapper for a pointer to another object and some object-specific 
information. That way, you could use this object to get 
copy-by-reference when necessary without the speed penalty for normal 
use.

-- 
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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