How complex a task would it be to patch POV so that is could render a scene 
to a wavelet compressed voxel (3d pixel) file.

I know some of these voxel files could be huge but tricks can be used to 
reduce their size. Remove all data inside opaque volumes and use a separate 
data layer for media and atmospherics so that it can be turned off or very 
high levels of compression applied to it. Multiple LOD points could be set 
to allow for navigation through the scene. Imagine these LODs as a set of 
overlapping spherical gradients that control the compression level.

I often wonder what it would be like to wander/look around inside some of 
the first class work on from the IRTC.

Think of it as extreme POV-VRML

:o) Dan.

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I have a friend who has a voxel engine that accepts height maps from POV Ray
and color maps to lay over them. It works very well. Let me know if that is
something that would interest you.

"Daniel Matthews" <dan### [at] 3-enet> wrote in message
news:141### [at] 3-enet...
> How complex a task would it be to patch POV so that is could render a
scene
> to a wavelet compressed voxel (3d pixel) file.
>
> I know some of these voxel files could be huge but tricks can be used to
> reduce their size. Remove all data inside opaque volumes and use a
separate
> data layer for media and atmospherics so that it can be turned off or very
> high levels of compression applied to it. Multiple LOD points could be set
> to allow for navigation through the scene. Imagine these LODs as a set of
> overlapping spherical gradients that control the compression level.
>
> I often wonder what it would be like to wander/look around inside some of
> the first class work on from the IRTC.
>
> Think of it as extreme POV-VRML
>
> :o) Dan.
>
>
>

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No it doesn't.
I was interested in a patched version of POV that has the exact features 
that I described, or a reasonable subset of them. Or a discussion on it's 
feasibility..

Unless your friend's engine is GPL and can handle multidimensional wavelet 
arrays, including alpha/mask dimensional sets?


Mitchell Waite wrote:

> I have a friend who has a voxel engine that accepts height maps from POV
> Ray and color maps to lay over them. It works very well. Let me know if
> that is something that would interest you.
> 
> "Daniel Matthews" <dan### [at] 3-enet> wrote in message
> news:141### [at] 3-enet...
>> How complex a task would it be to patch POV so that is could render a
> scene
>> to a wavelet compressed voxel (3d pixel) file.
>>
>> I know some of these voxel files could be huge but tricks can be used to
>> reduce their size. Remove all data inside opaque volumes and use a
> separate
>> data layer for media and atmospherics so that it can be turned off or
>> very high levels of compression applied to it. Multiple LOD points could
>> be set to allow for navigation through the scene. Imagine these LODs as a
>> set of overlapping spherical gradients that control the compression
>> level.
>>
>> I often wonder what it would be like to wander/look around inside some of
>> the first class work on from the IRTC.
>>
>> Think of it as extreme POV-VRML
>>
>> :o) Dan.
>>
>>
>>

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MegaPOV has a feature that can be used to create 3D density files, but 
that is purely geometry and uncompressed. Your idea sounds 
interesting...I think it would have to be another rendering engine 
attached to the same parser, though.
I think it would be possible, but a huge amount of work.

BTW, do you have any information on voxel file formats? I've been 
working on a voxel file editor...

-- 
 -- 
Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>

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I have a few PDF files of papers related to 3d wavelet compression of 
voxels. Look up stuff on medical imaging.

Christopher James Huff wrote:

> MegaPOV has a feature that can be used to create 3D density files, but
> that is purely geometry and uncompressed. Your idea sounds
> interesting...I think it would have to be another rendering engine
> attached to the same parser, though.
> I think it would be possible, but a huge amount of work.
> 
> BTW, do you have any information on voxel file formats? I've been
> working on a voxel file editor...
> 
> --
>  --
> Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>

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Could this be what you are looking for?

 A Fast Depth-Buffer-Based Voxelization Algorithm

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Yes! Thank you, that hint + google.com gave me this link

http://www.acm.org/jgt/papers/KarabassiEtAl99b/


Dave Dunn wrote:

> Could this be what you are looking for?
> 
>  A Fast Depth-Buffer-Based Voxelization Algorithm

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The VolVis link off that page also has related images.
http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~vislab/volvis_home.html

So the steps are

Generate the matrix in POV via a 3d render.
Encode the matrix with compression.
View the Matrix from any point.

No fancy lighting of the Volume is required as the original 3d render will 
supply this data. A good radiosity render should be a "fun" object to look 
at.

Daniel Matthews wrote:

> Yes! Thank you, that hint + google.com gave me this link
> 
> http://www.acm.org/jgt/papers/KarabassiEtAl99b/
> 
> 
> Dave Dunn wrote:
> 
>> Could this be what you are looking for?
>> 
>>  A Fast Depth-Buffer-Based Voxelization Algorithm

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http://www.google.com/search?q=wavelet+voxel

Christopher James Huff wrote:

> MegaPOV has a feature that can be used to create 3D density files, but
> that is purely geometry and uncompressed. Your idea sounds
> interesting...I think it would have to be another rendering engine
> attached to the same parser, though.
> I think it would be possible, but a huge amount of work.
> 
> BTW, do you have any information on voxel file formats? I've been
> working on a voxel file editor...
> 
> --
>  --
> Christopher James Huff <chr### [at] maccom>

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In article <141### [at] 3-enet>, dan### [at] 3-enet says...

> I often wonder what it would be like to wander/look around inside some of 
> the first class work on from the IRTC.
> 
> Think of it as extreme POV-VRML

What about the camera-location-dependent features: reflections, 
refractions, highlights...

You can't precalculate and store them all (you would have to this for 
every possible camera location) and you can't recalculate them later 
on-the-fly.

Lutz-Peter

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