Jaime Vives Piqueres wrote:

> I will be mailing Joshep to demonstrate
> him that mesh2 actually works with UV mapping on POV 3.5, and surely you
> will have support for it on the next version of Meshworks

Thanks Jaime!

Then, hopefully, there will be a solution ready when the official release of
3.5 happens. Will there be a link to it from the documentation?

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Tom Stone wrote:

> Will there be a link to it from the documentation?

Probably not. There is no mention of 3DWin in the mesh2 documentation
either. The POV-Ray documentation is about POV-Ray, not about third
party applications.

-- 
Ken Tyler - POV-Ray Technical Assistance Group.

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Ken wrote:

> Tom Stone wrote:
>
> > Will there be a link to it from the documentation?
>
> Probably not. There is no mention of 3DWin in the mesh2 documentation
> either. The POV-Ray documentation is about POV-Ray, not about third
> party applications.

Then I've downloaded a very strange version, as I clearly can read:

"9.2.3 How can I convert my scenes from format X to POV-Ray format?
You can try WCTV2Pov and Crossroads3D by Keith Rule and 3DWin by Thomas
Baier. "

...with links to both of them. Then, since the documentation isn't
"about third party applications", will these references be removed?

I'm getting the feeling that everyone here would be happier if the Mac
users would shut up. Therefore, I'll contribute to a happier world.

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Tom Stone wrote:

> Then I've downloaded a very strange version, as I clearly can read:
> 
> "9.2.3 How can I convert my scenes from format X to POV-Ray format?
> You can try WCTV2Pov and Crossroads3D by Keith Rule and 3DWin by Thomas
> Baier. "

And that is an FAQ appendix and not technically part of the documentation.
Regardless, I doubt we will add anything about Meshworks in the VFAQ until
we have confirmation that this feature will be supported and is fully
functional. You are more likely to see a reference to it on the official
mac.povray.org site once it has been developed.

-- 
Ken Tyler - POV-Ray Technical Assistance Group

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Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
: Oh, and of course it is always possible to code a mesh by hand ;-)

  See the SDL raytracer tutorial for an example of this...

-- 
#macro N(D,I)#if(I<6)cylinder{M()#local D[I]=div(D[I],104);M().5,2pigment{
rgb M()}}N(D,(D[I]>99?I:I+1))#end#end#macro M()<mod(D[I],13)-6,mod(div(D[I
],13),8)-3,10>#end blob{N(array[6]{11117333955,
7382340,3358,3900569407,970,4254934330},0)}//                     - Warp -

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Tom Stone <tom### [at] teliacom> wrote:
: And I'm not sure that it is fair to call it a "standard". No Mesh2 file have
: ever been produced on a Mac.

  Render the SDL raytracer tutorial example which comes with the documentation
and there you are.

: I'm just commenting that the documentation seems to imply that
: I can use it, when several hours of searching on the Internet reveals
: that I can't.

  Why couldn't you? I used it in that tutorial without the need of any third
party program. I just used it and period.

  If the documentation says that mesh2 is *mainly* intended for file
conversions, that doesn't mean that you couldn't use it directly (as I did).

  It's the exact same thing as with bicubic patches: They are mainly intended
for third party programs. However, nothing stops you from using the directly.

-- 
#macro N(D,I)#if(I<6)cylinder{M()#local D[I]=div(D[I],104);M().5,2pigment{
rgb M()}}N(D,(D[I]>99?I:I+1))#end#end#macro M()<mod(D[I],13)-6,mod(div(D[I
],13),8)-3,10>#end blob{N(array[6]{11117333955,
7382340,3358,3900569407,970,4254934330},0)}//                     - Warp -

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Warp wrote:

>   Render the SDL raytracer tutorial example which comes with the documentation
> and there you are.

I've just seen it. It's an amazing piece of work! I couldn't understand even half
of it, but it definitely shows the power of POV.

>
> : I'm just commenting that the documentation seems to imply that
> : I can use it,

>  Why couldn't you? I used it in that tutorial without the need of any third
> party program. I just used it and period.

True. Thanks for your help.
I guess that the reason for my misunderstanding is that I read Gilles Tran's
tutorial on how to use Poser figures in POV-Ray, in which he says that he needed
converters to get the models into the Mesh2 format. But I realize now that he
wrote that tutorial before the release of this Beta. Since, as you say, there
isn't any need for third party software anymore, I guess that there is a big
chance that Gilles will update his tutorial to show how to do the same
internally.

I've written Joseph Strout (developer of Meshwork) and asked if he could add .obj
to Mesh2 conversion in his software, but I'll write to him again and let him know
that it isn't necessary anymore.

Once again, thanks for your kind help! This is a great forum!

Sincerely,
Tom Stone

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Tom Stone <tom### [at] teliacom> wrote:
: But I realize now that he
: wrote that tutorial before the release of this Beta. Since, as you say, there
: isn't any need for third party software anymore

  Anymore? There has never been any need. The mesh2 is practically identical
in POV3.5 than it was in MegaPov. Nothing has changed.

-- 
#macro N(D,I)#if(I<6)cylinder{M()#local D[I]=div(D[I],104);M().5,2pigment{
rgb M()}}N(D,(D[I]>99?I:I+1))#end#end#macro M()<mod(D[I],13)-6,mod(div(D[I
],13),8)-3,10>#end blob{N(array[6]{11117333955,
7382340,3358,3900569407,970,4254934330},0)}//                     - Warp -

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Tom Stone wrote:

> I guess that there is a big
> chance that Gilles will update his tutorial to show how to do the same
> internally.

Well, perhaps it's still unclear, but the problem hasn't changed with 3.5.

- mesh2 objects are text files that can be written by hand or by Povray itself.
They're not platform-specific and this has always be the case for meshes or bicubic
patches. Using them like this, however, is limited to simple objects or to objects
that can be generated algorithmically.

- if you have a file written in an other format, such as obj or 3DS, you'll need a
converter and presently these converters are mostly for Windows. Until a Mac
programmer writes a converter native to Mac, or until developers of commercial apps
start implementing mesh2 exports, the situation is not going to change. AFAIK, the
current workaround is still to use one of the few Mac apps that exports to Povray's
regular mesh (Amapi does it, I don't know about others). However, with Poser being
also a Mac application and mesh2 being an official POV-Ray feature, this is more
likely to happen than before.

Now, in the specific case of Poser, I guess that someone with a good understanding of
both the obj files exported by Poser and the mesh2 format could write a converter in
POV script. Not the most efficient solution though.

G.

--

**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
Graphic experiments
Pov-ray gallery

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Gilles Tran <tra### [at] inapginrafr> wrote:

> - if you have a file written in an other format, such as obj or 3DS,
> you'll need a converter and presently these converters are mostly for
> Windows. Until a Mac programmer writes a converter native to Mac, or until
> developers of commercial apps start implementing mesh2 exports, the
> situation is not going to change.

If code (C or C++) for such converters is available it shouldn't be too
hard to port it for Mac users. So, if anyone knows of free converter
code, we might have a look at it.



-- 
e-mail:sme### [at] skynetbe

http://users.skynet.be/smellenbergh

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