Ok, this is probably a real stupid idea, but...

    I've caught the plant macro bug - I'm gonna give my isosurface
vegetation thoughts a shot...

    There's two problemettes with that though :

    1. I've never even attempted any kind of vegetation macro.
    2. I'm rubbish at math. Actually not rubbish, but I'm probably gonna
find coming up with suitable isosurfaces a headache, at best.

    Anyway, here's what I want to do :

    I want to put together a set of macros to generate a wide variety of
vegetation - from grass right through to flowers, bushes and trees.
    I'm gonna start with the easy stuff - grass - just the lawn-style stuff,
not longer, 'wild', grasses.
    Then, I guess I'll need some kinda L-system style recursive macros to
generate stems, trunks, branches and so on.
    Hmm... I kinda like to do whole plants with isosurfaces - could be
overkill I guess - but would be ideal for doing real nice bark effects...

    Ok, so the things I need to look into are :

    Isofunctions for stem, trunk and branch segments, leaves, flower parts,
maybe buds and fruits too...
    L-systems.
    Materials.
    How to pull all these things together into nice, flexible, vegetation
macros.

    Ok, I can probably dig up some info and resources to help L-systems and
Materials on the web - though, recommendationary pointers would be
appreciated.
    But, as I said early, the isosurfaces are probably gonna give me
headache, so, any help on that would definitely be appreciated.

Rohan:
    Even if you choose to not go down the iso route, we're both probably
gonna be looking into largely the same things - so this thread may be a good
place to discuss and share our findings...

--
Pandora/Scott Hill/[::O:M:C::]Scorpion
Software Engineer.
http://www.pandora-software.com

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"Pandora" <pan### [at] pandora-softwarecom> wrote in message
news:3d52fdea@news.povray.org...
>     Ok, this is probably a real stupid idea, but...
>
>     I want to put together a set of macros to generate a wide variety of
> vegetation - from grass right through to flowers, bushes and trees.
>
>     Isofunctions for stem, trunk and branch segments, leaves, flower
parts,
> maybe buds and fruits too...
>     L-systems.
>     Materials.
>     How to pull all these things together into nice, flexible, vegetation
> macros.

Great idea. No idea though about what could be done to pull it all together,
as you said.

My meager knowledge of the POV-Ray isosurface tells me you'd be adding a
bunch of individual "container" objects instead of accumaluating the whole
structure within a single iso.

That wouldn't be so tough I guess, collecting it all based on the container
orientation and size, since the CSG of primitives way of doing such things
is done by tying all the ends into a group too. The isosurfaces could
probably be controlled enough to make contact points since they'd be set
into 3D space as usual (whoa, am I ever making wild guesses!).

Hmmm, just had a thought. Photos of plant or tree textures might be applied
into a function as texture, maybe. You've no doubt been thinking about all
that. I just wonder if someone knows of a way to piece a whole object like a
tree into one iso. To me, that would be fascinating. All I know to do is
clump functions into a homogeneous thing :-) instead of heterogeneous.

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In article <3d52fdea@news.povray.org>, Pandora
<pan### [at] pandora-softwarecom> wrote:

>     2. I'm rubbish at math. Actually not rubbish, but I'm probably gonna
> find coming up with suitable isosurfaces a headache, at best.

I feel your pain. I spent the entire day messing around with an
isosurface brick with vertical ridges and some noise to make it
clay-like.

I've realised a few things whilst working through things:

1) everything you know is wrong.
2) experimentation is as good as knowing math ;)

My method is a bit sloppy, and the rendering is slow, but it's a great
brick. I even made an unevenly-troweled wall out of them. they look so
real.

keep on plugging, don't give up ;)

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"Elijah Sarver" <spa### [at] is-speakeasybad-net> wrote in message
news:120820022149310563%spa### [at] is-speakeasybad-net...
> In article <3d52fdea@news.povray.org>, Pandora
> <pan### [at] pandora-softwarecom> wrote:
>
> >     2. I'm rubbish at math. Actually not rubbish, but I'm probably gonna
> > find coming up with suitable isosurfaces a headache, at best.
>
> I feel your pain. I spent the entire day messing around with an
> isosurface brick with vertical ridges and some noise to make it
> clay-like.
>
> I've realised a few things whilst working through things:
>
> 1) everything you know is wrong.
> 2) experimentation is as good as knowing math ;)
>
> My method is a bit sloppy, and the rendering is slow, but it's a great
> brick. I even made an unevenly-troweled wall out of them. they look so
> real.
>
> keep on plugging, don't give up ;)

If you plan on using isosurface functions, plan on combining two or more
(works like layered textures, but better).  Using the brick analogy, you
could add a brick pattern function to an agate or granite function and make
a whole wall.

Experimentation eventually works, although you might feel like a monkey
typing out Shakespeare at times.  As for myself I use parametric surface
meshes for vegetation.  It eats memory like a hog, but it works.

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