Triscan.mcr is a macro definition file designed to work with 
MegaPOV's new features, such as trace(), min_extent, max_extent,
and so forth to produce a simulated surface scan of a #declared
POV object, and export it as a triangle mesh in RAW or LSL 
format. RAW files can then be converted with programs such as
3DWin or Crossroads to a number of other formats, and LSL files
can be directly imported into the Leveller height field editor.
Using this macro, I have...

 - Scanned POV objects and imported medium quality wiremeshes of 
   them into Rhinocerous and Poser as imported/prop objects. These 
   can then be used for helping to shape, pose, and scale creations
   you intend to import back into POV-Ray for use with the original 
   models.
 - Scanned POV objects and made them into Moray UDOs ... even in 
   cases where the primitives are not supported by Moray -- such as 
   julia fractals (which greatly expands the range of what you can 
   use in Moray)
 - Scanned simple POV-Ray objects into Leveller reference shape 
   files. This would allow you, for example, to make a house, wall,
   bridge, or whatever in POV-Ray script, then import a reference 
   shape of it into Leveller to use to sculpt a landscape around, 
   and reimport that height field back into POV for use with the 
   original models. 

What this file CAN'T do... 
If you're looking for a high quality tesselation that can be used in
other rendering engines and will produce exact copies of POV-Ray
objects, THIS ISN'T IT. This technique which uses the trace() 
function in MegaPOV tends to lose enough detail and suffers from 
a few inherant problems that I feel could only be solved by internal
access to the primitive's native parameters and tesselation routines
that would probably be too complex for POV script, or anything but 
a binary patch. The meshes this produce can be low quality for a 
quick and dirty reference shape, or even medium to fair quality, 
if you're will to wait a bit longer, but for full quality POV-Ray
primitives, I'm afraid this is just not a substitute. Still, it
may have its uses, so here it is.

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'triscan.zip' (15 KB)

Fabian BRAU wrote:
> Your macro for Moray user is very very great!
> Very good job!

Thank you!

> So I just ask you if I can use your freeware macro Triscan for this
> purpose!
> In the doc of povray, the team say that everyone can use it (povray)
> freely for commercial or non-commercial purpose!

Fabian: absolutely. Just to make it official, all source code, 
utilities, macros, etc that I release, including Triscan are free 
for all derivative uses, just like POV-Ray itself. By all means, 
any use you can think to put Triscan to you are welcome to do so. 
I hope it will serve you well.

And good luck on the game you mentioned. It sounds very intriguing.
Myst/Riven style games are of course my favorite, being a fan of
both exploring and making raytraced worlds. I would be interested 
to see how it turns out!

Cheers!
Charles

Post a reply to this message