In article <3ea6d1e3@news.povray.org>, Wolfgang Wieser <wwi### [at] gmxde> 
wrote:

> Ever tried to render a several-million-triangle mesh with POVRay?

No, but it shouldn't be a huge problem given enough RAM. A few million 
should stay well within the capabilities of 32 bit systems. If memory 
space is restricted, this algorithm could be very useful.


> If you want to trace topography data you run out of memory much faster 
> than you think. 

Why? What makes topography data inherently more memory consuming than 
other meshes?


> Staying at that example, a 1-million-triangle topography of a planet looks 
> not very well unless you add some "artificial" complexity like 
> subdivision surfaces. Or, maybe, something these people described 
> "addition of large amounts of geometric complexity into models". 

This doesn't require doing it at render time, at the expense of CPU time 
that could be used for actual rendering.
Besides, why would you use a 1 million triangle mesh of an entire planet 
when you are close enough to see geometry that can't be represented with 
that mesh?

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
http://tag.povray.org/

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