Mick Hazelgrove wrote:
> 
> > > However, there are no such programs on the Mac.
> 
> There is a Mac version of Poser.

There you go. Now he just needs to talk a Mac programmer into making
a conversion utility and he will be all set.

-- 
Ken Tyler

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> Actually it's more a case of people writing more utilities that support
> POV-Ray under Windows than for Mac. If more Mac people would write the
> utilities then it would not appear to be platform specific. You can't
> fault POV-Ray because 3DWin and Poser aren't supported on a Mac.

Hello Ken,

No, I'm not blaming POV-Ray. It's a wonderful program which I love dearly.

But this format have always been reserved for PC's since it was created, before it
was included in 3.5.
And I don't think that the creator of 3DWin have any plans to port his software.

I have no problem with platform specific features in POV-Ray, as long as it is
mentioned in the documentation.
Quite the opposite actually. There are a few Mac-specific things that I would like
to see in the mac version, like for example the ability to use Truetype fonts (if
it is technically possible).

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Tom Stone wrote:
> 
> > Actually it's more a case of people writing more utilities that support
> > POV-Ray under Windows than for Mac. If more Mac people would write the
> > utilities then it would not appear to be platform specific. You can't
> > fault POV-Ray because 3DWin and Poser aren't supported on a Mac.
> 
> Hello Ken,
> 
> No, I'm not blaming POV-Ray. It's a wonderful program which I love dearly.
> 
> But this format have always been reserved for PC's since it was created, before it
> was included in 3.5.
> And I don't think that the creator of 3DWin have any plans to port his software.
> 
> I have no problem with platform specific features in POV-Ray, as long as it is
> mentioned in the documentation.

I think you are missing the point here. There is nothing about the mesh2
feature that restricts it to any one platform. The feature works the same
under the Mac OS as it does on any PC OS. If I were to email you a file
with the mesh2 syntax it would render exactly the same on your machine as
it does on my Windows machine. This means it is NOT platform specific and
saying so in the documentation would be misleading.

-- 
Ken Tyler - POV-Ray Technical Assistance Group

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Ken wrote:

> I think you are missing the point here. There is nothing about the mesh2
> feature that restricts it to any one platform.

I probably am missing the point, as I'm not a programmer.
So Mesh2 would have been included even if there were no converters on the PC-platform
either?


> If I were to email you a file
> with the mesh2 syntax it would render exactly the same on your machine as
> it does on my Windows machine.

Yes, I understand. What I'm commenting is that I must get a Windows machine like yours
to be able to use it, and that it would save a bit of frustration if that fact were
included in the documentation.

> This means it is NOT platform specific and
> saying so in the documentation would be misleading.

I guess that I'm a bit off when it comes to proper terminology. English isn't my first
language.
What I'm asking for is some kind of acknowledgement that Mac users can't use the Mesh2
format. As it is now, it looks like all users can use these new wonderful features.
Therefore one start to imagine what can be accomplished, start looking for a good
price
for Poser etc.

But after many, many hours searching through internet (your amazing link collection
was
the first place I looked at), the realization came slowly; there exist no practical
method for me to use this feature, except by cutting and pasting.
I could have been saved all those hours and fantasies with just a few words in the
documentation, like: "No converters exists for Mac". Then I could have accepted it,
forget it and just enjoy all the other features in this wonderful program.

I guess that I could try to write my own converter. I'm not a programmer, but I've
played a little with RealBasic.
Is there any pseudo code for a such converter anywhere? (I can't read C++)

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Tom Stone wrote:
> 
> Ken wrote:
> 
> > I think you are missing the point here. There is nothing about the mesh2
> > feature that restricts it to any one platform.
> 
> I probably am missing the point, as I'm not a programmer.
> So Mesh2 would have been included even if there were no converters on the
PC-platform
> either?

Yes.
 
> > If I were to email you a file
> > with the mesh2 syntax it would render exactly the same on your machine as
> > it does on my Windows machine.
> 
> Yes, I understand. What I'm commenting is that I must get a Windows machine like
yours
> to be able to use it, and that it would save a bit of frustration if that fact were
> included in the documentation.

I would guess that no one has created a conversion program for the Mac
yet because this is the first time that mesh2 has been offered in the
offical version of POV-Ray. It takes a while for people out in the
community to find out what is in the new version of the program and
develop outside utilities for those features.

-- 
Ken Tyler - POV-Ray Technical Assistance Group

Post a reply to this message

> > I think you are missing the point here. There is nothing about the mesh2
> > feature that restricts it to any one platform.
> 
> I probably am missing the point, as I'm not a programmer.
> So Mesh2 would have been included even if there were no converters on the
PC-platform
> either?

Mesh2 is nothing more or less than another way of defining a triangle 
mesh IIRC.  This means that converters have not a lot to nothing to do 
with its presence in POV 3.5b1

> > If I were to email you a file
> > with the mesh2 syntax it would render exactly the same on your machine as
> > it does on my Windows machine.
> 
> Yes, I understand. What I'm commenting is that I must get a Windows machine like
yours
> to be able to use it, and that it would save a bit of frustration if that fact were
> included in the documentation.

I think there's a bit of confusion over what you mean by *use*.  Ken 
seems to take the point that to use it is to shove it into a scene and 
render it.  You seem to be taking 'use' to imply conversion to other 
formats...
 
All of this is IMO, of course :)

Bye for now,
     Jamie.

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In article <3B9B9FD8.AF9A4A6F@telia.com> , Tom Stone <tom### [at] teliacom>
wrote:

> But this format have always been reserved for PC's since it was created,
> before it was included in 3.5.

There is nothing PC specific about it.  If someone would just take the time
and write programs that can export to it on the Mac, there would be no
problem using it.  Oh, and of course it is always possible to code a mesh by
hand ;-)

> Mac-specific things that I would like to see in the Mac version, like for
> example the ability to use TrueType fonts (if it is technically possible).

TrueType font has been improved a lot in 3.5.  Try to use some of the fonts
you have installed.  For example open ":scenes:objects:ttf1.pov" and change
the font used in there from "crystal.ttf" to "times.ttf" or just plain
"times".  This should work at least with Mac OS 9 and later, but it may also
work with Mac OS 8.x but I didn't test it there.  It will also most likely
not work with all Mac fonts, but at least with most of the default ones.

Of course, as the Mac docs haven't been written yet, you couldn't know about
this feature...

Basically the conversion of TrueType fonts with the simple utility that was
included with 3.1g.r2 has now been merged into the Mac specific backend code
(the same hooks that allow the Windows version to filter file/pathnames for
IO restrictions allow the Mac version i.e. to do these font tricks).


    Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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news:3B9BB755.EB425397@telia.com...
> Yes, I understand. What I'm commenting is that I must get a Windows
machine like yours
> to be able to use it, and that it would save a bit of frustration if that
fact were
> included in the documentation.

 But if tomorrow someone writes a program to do that, the docs will be
wrong!!! Indeed, the following tow quotes from your message are
incompatible:

> What I'm asking for is some kind of acknowledgement that Mac users can't
use the Mesh2
> format. As it is now, it looks like all users can use these new wonderful
features.

> I guess that I could try to write my own converter.

 because if you can write a program, it is not a plataform specific feature,
and then the documentation will be wrong stating it, isn't?

 Jaime

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>
> > So Mesh2 would have been included even if there were no converters on the
PC-platform
> > either?
>
> Yes.

Thanks Ken. I didn't expect that answer, but if you say so :-)

> I would guess that no one has created a conversion program for the Mac
> yet because this is the first time that mesh2 has been offered in the
> offical version of POV-Ray. It takes a while for people out in the
> community to find out what is in the new version of the program and
> develop outside utilities for those features.

I hope that it will become like that.

If no mention of this will be included in the documentation, then perhaps it can be
made on
the mac.povray.org site?
Perhaps a list named "Call for developers" that contains a list of things that needs
to be
done, like a Mesh2 converter, something to generate heightfields with more than 256
levels
etc. etc.

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Jamie Davison wrote:

>
> Mesh2 is nothing more or less than another way of defining a triangle
> mesh IIRC.  This means that converters have not a lot to nothing to do
> with its presence in POV 3.5b1

Yes, I was just informed by Ken about that. I though that the inclusion was partly to
the
sucess Gilles Tran and other PC users have had with the combination 3DWin and MegaPov.
Since no Mesh2 file have ever been produced on a Mac, I don't think that many Mac
users
have insisted much on its inclusion in the official release.
However, it seems like I was wrong.

>
> I think there's a bit of confusion over what you mean by *use*.  Ken
> seems to take the point that to use it is to shove it into a scene and
> render it.  You seem to be taking 'use' to imply conversion to other
> formats...

Sorry that I was unclear. English isn't my first language.
The only thing I mean with "use" is to be able to render a UV-mapped model in POV-Ray,
just
like Gilles Tran and others have been able to do for a long while. The documentation
seems
to imply that I can, when in fact, I can't.
(unless I write a converter myself or buy a PC)

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