Hi,

I learned from other users, that declaring an image file (that is being
used for multiple textures) within a pigment and then using this pigment
in these textures, would save memory as it prevents that the same image
is being loaded multiple times into the memory.

Well, now I tried to optimize my scene source code.

Since the same bump_map image is used for a planar and also for a
spherical projection, I tried to declare the bump_map, too:
#declare Bump = bump_map { "Seneca II - Hull Bump NoGates.png" }

And then using it multiple times:
#declare BPL04 = normal { bump_map { Bump bump_size 0.4 } }
#declare BPL10 = normal { bump_map { Bump bump_size 1.0 } }
#declare BSP04 = normal { bump_map { Bump map_type 1 bump_size 0.4 } }

I also thought, that I could optimize (minimize image loading amounts)
this way:
#declare Car = image_map { jpeg "Seneca II - Hull Plating.jpg" }

And then using it multiple times:
#declare CarPL = pigment { image_map { Car             interpolate 2 } }
#declare CarSP = pigment { image_map { Car  map_type 1 interpolate 2 } }

But planet Earth would be a paradise, if things would be that easy. But
they aren't. POV-Ray returned an error saying "rvalue expected but
something else found".

Thus my suggestion to the magnificent POV-Ray developer team, to allow
such declarations. I believe, this could reduce memory usage further by
preventing having to load the same image multiple times just because the
map-type or any other modifier differs slightly. I would like to get
some feedback of other users and surely of the developers, if possible.
Thanks for your time, reading, good intentions and answering. :-D

Post a reply to this message

Sven Littkowski <jam### [at] yahoocom> wrote:

> Thus my suggestion to the magnificent POV-Ray developer team, to allow
> such declarations. I believe, this could reduce memory usage further by
> preventing having to load the same image multiple times just because the
> map-type or any other modifier differs slightly. I would like to get
> some feedback of other users and surely of the developers, if possible.

No need for further user feedback - such a feature is already on the agenda...
somewhere. See my other post in povray.general (or wherever that was) a few
minutes ago.

Post a reply to this message

Thanks, this is great news, and good to know! At the moment, the
computer goes almost down while parsing, and parsing alone takes up to
10 minutes for the scene I am working on...   :-D

I hope, this little implementation won't take too much time to do.

Post a reply to this message