Hi All

Some of you may remember my 'meshrelief' include for making perturbed meshes
from target shapes. I've recently rewritten it using a cube-face point grid
instead of the old equirectangular grid, which tended to produce 'pinching' at
the poles. The even spacing of the cube grid also allows simple kernel smoothing
of the resulting mesh.

There are now two optional mesh deformation stages (each with their own
smoothing passes if required), with predefined texture maps so the mesh can be
textured to match the deformation functions. As before, deformation is best
limited to small distances to avoid self-intersection, since the points are
moved along the local normals.

The image here illustrates these main options using a single base shape.

My intention is to share this include on this server (final polish pending).
Eventually I'll add it to the Object Collection, but in the meantime what's the
most suitable group to post it to? P.b.s-f?

I'll post a couple of other example images too in a bit

Bill

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Attachments:
Download 'meshcube_icodemo.jpg' (340 KB)

Preview of image 'meshcube_icodemo.jpg'

On 11/12/20 12:39 PM, Bill Pragnell wrote:
> Hi All
> 
...
> 
> My intention is to share this include on this server (final polish pending).
> Eventually I'll add it to the Object Collection, but in the meantime what's the
> most suitable group to post it to? P.b.s-f?
> 

Hello. Looking really good! I'd lean toward p.b.utilities, but p.b.s.f 
fine too I think.

Bill P.

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"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> I'll post a couple of other example images too in a bit

Here's a sphere + heavy crackle + light granite, 200 points on a cube edge ->
approx 475,000 triangles. The mesh was built in about 45 seconds on my 2012
laptop, but took quite a long time to render because radiosity + soft shadows.

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Attachments:
Download 'spikyball.jpg' (100 KB)

Preview of image 'spikyball.jpg'

"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Hi All
>
> Some of you may remember my 'meshrelief' include for making perturbed meshes
> from target shapes. I've recently rewritten it using a cube-face point grid
> instead of the old equirectangular grid, which tended to produce 'pinching' at
> the poles. The even spacing of the cube grid also allows simple kernel smoothing
> of the resulting mesh.

Nice.  So this should function something like Chris Young's point-cloud
generation, which he then refined in MeshLab and exported to a mesh {} / STL for
3D printing?

I was recently pondering a design that seemed worth printing on my friend's
Stratasys, so... this is timely.   :)

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"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> Nice.  So this should function something like Chris Young's point-cloud
> generation, which he then refined in MeshLab and exported to a mesh {} / STL for
> 3D printing?

I'm not sure I'm aware of Chris' work. However, my macros do produce properly
closed meshes, and allow saving them as .inc files, so in theory yes.

I've actually done this before with another project - last year I made some mesh
knots in POV-Ray, and used the SDL to directly output STL files suitable for
printing. Some Ultimakers we have at work did a fine job with them :)

Bill

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"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> "Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> > Nice.  So this should function something like Chris Young's point-cloud
> > generation, which he then refined in MeshLab and exported to a mesh {} / STL for
> > 3D printing?
>
> I'm not sure I'm aware of Chris' work. However, my macros do produce properly
> closed meshes, and allow saving them as .inc files, so in theory yes.

http://www.povray.org/
5th item down.

Also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXrLJsqkwT8
http://graphics.cyborg5.com/

> I've actually done this before with another project - last year I made some mesh
> knots in POV-Ray, and used the SDL to directly output STL files suitable for
> printing. Some Ultimakers we have at work did a fine job with them :)

Very nice.  I'll bet that was lots of fun to go from raytracing to a magical
piece of IRL plastic you could hold in your hand.  :)

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Op 12/11/2020 om 18:39 schreef Bill Pragnell:
> Hi All
> 
> Some of you may remember my 'meshrelief' include for making perturbed meshes
> from target shapes. I've recently rewritten it using a cube-face point grid
> instead of the old equirectangular grid, which tended to produce 'pinching' at
> the poles. The even spacing of the cube grid also allows simple kernel smoothing
> of the resulting mesh.
> 
> There are now two optional mesh deformation stages (each with their own
> smoothing passes if required), with predefined texture maps so the mesh can be
> textured to match the deformation functions. As before, deformation is best
> limited to small distances to avoid self-intersection, since the points are
> moved along the local normals.
> 
> The image here illustrates these main options using a single base shape.
> 
> My intention is to share this include on this server (final polish pending).
> Eventually I'll add it to the Object Collection, but in the meantime what's the
> most suitable group to post it to? P.b.s-f?
> 

Great work, Bill! It has been some (too long) time since I last used 
meshrelief. This looks like a most interesting update indeed, just in 
time for my birthday. :-)

I posted my updates of lawnmaker and cloud shells to p.b.utilities, 
which seemed most appropriate, but it looks like p.b.scene-files is also 
a correct location after all.

-- 
Thomas

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Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> Op 12/11/2020 om 18:39 schreef Bill Pragnell:
> > Hi All
> >
> > Some of you may remember my 'meshrelief' include for making perturbed meshes
> > from target shapes. I've recently rewritten it using a cube-face point grid
> > instead of the old equirectangular grid, which tended to produce 'pinching' at
> > the poles. The even spacing of the cube grid also allows simple kernel smoothing
> > of the resulting mesh.
> >
> > There are now two optional mesh deformation stages (each with their own
> > smoothing passes if required), with predefined texture maps so the mesh can be
> > textured to match the deformation functions. As before, deformation is best
> > limited to small distances to avoid self-intersection, since the points are
> > moved along the local normals.
> >
> > The image here illustrates these main options using a single base shape.
> >
> > My intention is to share this include on this server (final polish pending).
> > Eventually I'll add it to the Object Collection, but in the meantime what's the
> > most suitable group to post it to? P.b.s-f?
> >
>
> Great work, Bill! It has been some (too long) time since I last used
> meshrelief. This looks like a most interesting update indeed, just in
> time for my birthday. :-)
>
> I posted my updates of lawnmaker and cloud shells to p.b.utilities,
> which seemed most appropriate, but it looks like p.b.scene-files is also
> a correct location after all.
>
> --
> Thomas
Hello,
I'm a bit confused to which does what: so HG POV, is able to create displacement
on meshes, right? is this macro for standard POV (3.8?) able to do this as well?
if both are, what would be some advantages of using one over the other in
various situations?  I hope some natively shipped feature will finally come out
of all this. Thanks for your generous efforts!

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That's a very interesting work. Well done!


"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Hi All
>
> Some of you may remember my 'meshrelief' include for making perturbed meshes
> from target shapes. I've recently rewritten it using a cube-face point grid
> instead of the old equirectangular grid, which tended to produce 'pinching' at
> the poles. The even spacing of the cube grid also allows simple kernel smoothing
> of the resulting mesh.
>
> There are now two optional mesh deformation stages (each with their own
> smoothing passes if required), with predefined texture maps so the mesh can be
> textured to match the deformation functions. As before, deformation is best
> limited to small distances to avoid self-intersection, since the points are
> moved along the local normals.
>
> The image here illustrates these main options using a single base shape.
>
> My intention is to share this include on this server (final polish pending).
> Eventually I'll add it to the Object Collection, but in the meantime what's the
> most suitable group to post it to? P.b.s-f?
>
> I'll post a couple of other example images too in a bit
>
> Bill

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"Mr" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> I'm a bit confused to which does what: so HG POV, is able to create displacement
> on meshes, right? is this macro for standard POV (3.8?) able to do this as well?
> if both are, what would be some advantages of using one over the other in
> various situations?  I hope some natively shipped feature will finally come out
> of all this. Thanks for your generous efforts!

I must admit I didn't know about hg-pov's mesh tools - I was aware of the fork,
but didn't realise what it included. Very interesting!

My macro works in POV-Ray 3.7/3.8, and indeed any version of POV-Ray based on
these (e.g. UberPOV, which I mostly use these days). It looks like one could do
the same things in hg-pov by chaining successive meshes together. The marching
cubes algorithm allows for a greater range of base shapes than my macro, and
will obviously be much faster.

The only advantage my macro appears to offer is the inbuilt uv-mapping that
allows separate texturing of the displaced regions (I couldn't immediately see
how hg-pov's mesh tools would permit this, but it might be possible).

More choice for everyone!

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