> 
> Another (more serious) suggestion would be to eliminate all the internal
> object types in favor of a single highly optimized primitive (say
> triangles).  You can still have the higher level primitives at the level of
> the input language, but convert them (lazily, and perhaps with caching) into
> triangles for the purpose of tracing.   Having a single underlying geometric
> representation allows you to concentrate your effort on producing a highly
> optimized set of routines that benefit all scenes.
> 
> Mark
Ahem... Ehh... Why does 3DS scream in my eyes when I read this? *sighs*
The basic idea of pov is a raytracer, not a cheap hack at a mesh
handler... 


//Spider
--Nothing matters anymore.

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In povray.general Ron Parker <par### [at] fwicom> wrote:
:   It would be nice if it were possible to 
: decompose every object into triangles to within specified tolerances

  Is it possible for any object type in povray?
  What about the infinite objects (planes, polys...)? How do you make an
infinite triangle?
  What about csg?

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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Nieminen Mika wrote:
> 
> In povray.general Ron Parker <par### [at] fwicom> wrote:
> :   It would be nice if it were possible to
> : decompose every object into triangles to within specified tolerances
> 
>   Is it possible for any object type in povray?
>   What about the infinite objects (planes, polys...)? How do you make an
> infinite triangle?
>   What about csg?

  Wouldn't it also add greatly to the memory overhead for the program. I
recall reading that the reason the developers of pov originally decided to
use the mathematically derived primitives unlike the triangle model is because
it is both faster and less memory intensive to create. 3ds max to create
an equivalent smooth sphere without using surface normal smoothing requires
1000's of triangles to represent. It would surely limit the number of
objects you could include in your scene if you had low memory on your system
and even those with more memory would max out rather quickly with only 10's
to a few hundred objects. I'm not saying you shouldn't or can't add this
feature though I wonder at it's usefulness.



-- 
Ken Tyler
  
mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/links.htm

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Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote in message
news:379C02D6.1A51296D@pacbell.net...
>   Wouldn't it also add greatly to the memory overhead for the program. I
> recall reading that the reason the developers of pov originally decided to
> use the mathematically derived primitives unlike the triangle model is
because
> it is both faster and less memory intensive to create. 3ds max to create
> an equivalent smooth sphere without using surface normal smoothing
requires
> 1000's of triangles to represent. It would surely limit the number of
> objects you could include in your scene if you had low memory on your
system
> and even those with more memory would max out rather quickly with only
10's
> to a few hundred objects. I'm not saying you shouldn't or can't add this
> feature though I wonder at it's usefulness.
>

I agree with you Ken. I often use POV to create scenes with many tens of
thousands of spheres (using Biowin) , and from my experience there's *no
way* that I'd be able to use more than a few hundred spheres in a mesh based
program. As far as I'm concerned, it's the use of mathematically defined
primitives, along with the procedural textures that make POV so great.

Andy

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In povray.programming Andrew Cocker <and### [at] acockerfreeservecouk> wrote:
: I agree with you Ken. I often use POV to create scenes with many tens of
: thousands of spheres (using Biowin) , and from my experience there's *no
: way* that I'd be able to use more than a few hundred spheres in a mesh based
: program. As far as I'm concerned, it's the use of mathematically defined
: primitives, along with the procedural textures that make POV so great.

  Actually, if you had defined one mesh object, which is the sphere, and
then spread tens of thousands of copies of that declared mesh (scaling,
rotating, translating and texturing them), memory consumption would not be
very high.
  If each one of the spheres had to be a _different_ mesh (like having
different number of spikes all of them), then the memory consumption would
be prohibitive.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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On 26 Jul 1999 02:26:48 -0400, Nieminen Mika wrote:
>In povray.general Ron Parker <par### [at] fwicom> wrote:
>:   It would be nice if it were possible to 
>: decompose every object into triangles to within specified tolerances
>
>  Is it possible for any object type in povray?
>  What about the infinite objects (planes, polys...)? How do you make an
>infinite triangle?

Well, you're right there.  Other finite objects would be tough, too.  
Ferinstance, I don't want to think about the Julia object.  But it'd
be nice for the objects people actually tend to use. 

>  What about csg?

CSG probably isn't a problem.  It can be done, it's just a Simple
Matter of Programming.  Lots of programming, that is.

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On 26 Jul 1999 09:46:56 -0400, par### [at] fwicom (Ron Parker) wrote:

>Well, you're right there.  Other finite objects would be tough, too.  
>Ferinstance, I don't want to think about the Julia object.  But it'd
>be nice for the objects people actually tend to use. 

Ahem, just what are you trying to imply, Ron? For Pete's sake, I've
rendered more Julias than anything else (even spheres). Then again, I
might be nuts :)

Seriously, Pascal Massimino's page is hosted on povray.org . I think I
saw something about tesselating a Julia object there.

>>  What about csg?
>
>CSG probably isn't a problem.  It can be done, it's just a Simple
>Matter of Programming.  Lots of programming, that is.

:)
I second that. Most 3D packages (I'm talking scanline here) have some
sort of boolean operations.


Peter Popov
ICQ: 15002700

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Why testellate the Julia object? What do you want to do? Twist it? <g>

Margus

Peter Popov wrote:
> 
> On 26 Jul 1999 09:46:56 -0400, par### [at] fwicom (Ron Parker) wrote:
> 
> >Well, you're right there.  Other finite objects would be tough, too.
> >Ferinstance, I don't want to think about the Julia object.  But it'd
> >be nice for the objects people actually tend to use.
> 
> Ahem, just what are you trying to imply, Ron? For Pete's sake, I've
> rendered more Julias than anything else (even spheres). Then again, I
> might be nuts :)
> 
> Seriously, Pascal Massimino's page is hosted on povray.org . I think I
> saw something about tesselating a Julia object there.
> 
> >>  What about csg?
> >
> >CSG probably isn't a problem.  It can be done, it's just a Simple
> >Matter of Programming.  Lots of programming, that is.
> 
> :)
> I second that. Most 3D packages (I'm talking scanline here) have some
> sort of boolean operations.
> 
> Peter Popov
> ICQ: 15002700

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On Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:55:45 +0300, Margus Ramst <mar### [at] peakeduee>
wrote:

>Why testellate the Julia object? What do you want to do? Twist it? <g>
>
>Margus

Implement it in Moray? <--G--> Export it to VRML and have a Realtime
Spinning Julia Frenzy party? Calculate the electrostatic field around
it? You name it...



Peter Popov
ICQ: 15002700

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Peter Popov wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:55:45 +0300, Margus Ramst <mar### [at] peakeduee>
> wrote:
> 
> >Why testellate the Julia object? What do you want to do? Twist it? <g>
> >
> >Margus
> 
> Implement it in Moray? <--G--> Export it to VRML and have a Realtime
> Spinning Julia Frenzy party? Calculate the electrostatic field around
> it? You name it...

I would like to serve mine up with whip cream and strawberries...

-- 
Ken Tyler
  
mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/links.htm

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