In article <7pYQOQdz3VwIq87b5HeLIG04BLgf@4ax.com>, Glen Berry 
<7no### [at] ezwvcom> wrote:

> I just rendered the steps demo, and it does indeed perform a posterize
> function, which brings me to something that I wanted to tell you the
> moment I first saw that demo file. Since "steps" is really
> "posterize", could I talk you into renaming it "posterize"? I have
> three reasons for you to consider renaming it.

It would probably be a good idea, since it hasn't even been released in 
MegaPOV yet. The reason I didn't name it "posterize" was that I had no 
idea what "posterize" meant, but I thought it might be a useful feature. 
:-)


> First, this has been the traditional name for this effect for several
> years. Keeping with tradition avoids confusion and unnecessary
> fragmentation of the language. It also simply feels more "correct" to
> use the established word, at least to me.

Well, "steps" seems a lot less confusing than "posterize", but only 
because I didn't know anything about "posterize".


> Second, the word "steps" is more likely to appear in someone's POV
> file as a variable name or something.
...

This I don't really agree with, since you should always use at least one 
upper-case letter in your variable name to prevent exactly this problem. 
Not really a limiting factor.
Besides, "steps" is already a reserved word, used in photon mapping, not 
a new one. :-)


> Third, at the moment there are probably only a very few people playing
> with this filter, or even this patch for that matter. Renaming it now
> wouldn't have a big impact on "existing scenes" because there would
> probably only be a handful of those at the moment. I think that most
> people would consider a patch only available in source form as being
> "experimental," and wouldn't mind the change.

I doubt there is anyone at all using this patch in an actual scene at 
this time...and MegaPOV 0.5 hasn't even been released, so it is 
definitely a good idea to change it before the release.
I have done it in my personal version already.

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

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