Hi all.  I just found this newsgroup recently and I'm amazed at all the
traffic on it.  It seems that POV-Ray has come a long way form it's
humble beginnings back in '85 or so.  I'm the author of DKBTrace which,
you may know, is the predecessor of POV-Ray.  I offered the DKBTrace
source to the POV-Ray team as a base system and I served on the POV-Ray
team for about two years.

What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world?  I'm
seeing some amazing things posted on the net.

David Buck
dav### [at] simberoncom

Post a reply to this message

> I'm the author of DKBTrace which,
> you may know, is the predecessor of POV-Ray.  I offered the DKBTrace
> source to the POV-Ray team as a base system and I served on the POV-Ray
> team for about two years.
>

The Legend Returns! Thank you for your contribution to what has become
an
excellent program and a lot of fun.

> What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world?  I'm
> seeing some amazing things posted on the net.

If you look back a couple threads you'll find that Intel is going
to be using Povray and Gilles Tran's art work to demonstrate the
Pentium 4.
The Pov-Team is currently working on the next version of official
povray,
and then there's Megapov which is constantly going through new 
exciting experiments.


-- 
Phil
...coffee?...yes please! extra sugar,extra cream...Thank you.

Post a reply to this message

POV-Ray has developed in many ways. The greatest thing actually is the big
community that started creating patches some years ago. These patches have
been put together tp patched POV versions. The most popular one is Megapov.
It has nice features like photon mapping or iso surfaces.
You can see amazing things at
http://www.irtc.org
My favourite one is still the "wet bird" by Gilles Tran. It's far away from
the reflective sphere over a checkered floor :-)
Nice to see you around here.

All the Best,

Marc

David Buck <dav### [at] simberoncom> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag:
3A6755CD.920FCBDB@simberon.com...
> Hi all.  I just found this newsgroup recently and I'm amazed at all the
> traffic on it.  It seems that POV-Ray has come a long way form it's
> humble beginnings back in '85 or so.  I'm the author of DKBTrace which,
> you may know, is the predecessor of POV-Ray.  I offered the DKBTrace
> source to the POV-Ray team as a base system and I served on the POV-Ray
> team for about two years.
>
> What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world?  I'm
> seeing some amazing things posted on the net.
>
> David Buck
> dav### [at] simberoncom
>
>

Post a reply to this message

This is a great opportunity to thank you for starting this.
Of course I also owe the POV-team a debt of gratitude but it's nice to be able
to thank you in person.

Kind regards,

Remco de Korte
http://www.xs4all.nl/~remcodek/

David Buck wrote:
> 
> Hi all.  I just found this newsgroup recently and I'm amazed at all the
> traffic on it.  It seems that POV-Ray has come a long way form it's
> humble beginnings back in '85 or so.  I'm the author of DKBTrace which,
> you may know, is the predecessor of POV-Ray.  I offered the DKBTrace
> source to the POV-Ray team as a base system and I served on the POV-Ray
> team for about two years.
> 
> What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world?  I'm
> seeing some amazing things posted on the net.
> 
> David Buck
> dav### [at] simberoncom

Post a reply to this message

The legend returns, it is the prophecy......


--
Rick

POV-Ray News & Resources - http://povray.co.uk
Kitty5 WebDesign - http://kitty5.com
Hi-Impact web site design & database driven e-commerce
TEL : +44 (01625) 266358 - FAX : +44 (01625) 611913 - ICQ : 15776037

PGP Public Key
http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x231E1CEA

Post a reply to this message

In article <3A6755CD.920FCBDB@simberon.com>, David Buck 
<dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:

> Hi all.  I just found this newsgroup recently and I'm amazed at all the
> traffic on it.  It seems that POV-Ray has come a long way form it's
> humble beginnings back in '85 or so.  I'm the author of DKBTrace which,
> you may know, is the predecessor of POV-Ray.  I offered the DKBTrace
> source to the POV-Ray team as a base system and I served on the POV-Ray
> team for about two years.
> 
> What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world?  I'm
> seeing some amazing things posted on the net.

Well, probably the first would be MegaPOV, which contains most of the 
third party patches people have written:
http://nathan.kopp.com/patched.htm

Some of the more interesting things: isosurfaces described by functions 
you specify in the scene file, photon mapping for realistic refractive 
and reflective caustics, angle-dependant reflection...

A page with demo images of most of the patches is here:
http://users.skynet.be/smellenbergh/demo.html

There are also patches for object tesselation and deformation in 
progress, a possible OpenGL rendering patch, a particle system patch 
(http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/images/particleFountain.jpg), and 
several other things...I'm currently working on a "portal" pigment. 
(Basically, rays hit the pigment and stop, and reappear from somewhere 
else going in a different direction...at least that's what the user 
sees. Like a portal from one area to another.)

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

Post a reply to this message

<kneels on one knee, puts right arm across chest, bows head> Master... It is
an honor to see you here. <stands up, waves at other POVers> Praise the
Buck! Hail David! Hail David! Wooo! :)

I am Anthony Bennett, your humble servant, and creator of the MegaPOV
firey-M icon. A small contribution, but a contribution nonetheless...

Post a reply to this message

> The Legend Returns! Thank you for your contribution to what has become
> an
> excellent program and a lot of fun.

Huh?  It's always been those two things :)

--
Lance.

http://come.to/the.zone

Post a reply to this message

David Buck wrote in message <3A6755CD.920FCBDB@simberon.com>...
>What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world?  I'm
>seeing some amazing things posted on the net.

In addition to the minor changes mentioned by others, the syntax for a
chrome sphere over a checkered plane has gotten simpler.


--
Mark

Post a reply to this message

"Remco de Korte" <rem### [at] onwijscom> wrote in message
news:3A675C56.A4C09C05@onwijs.com...
> This is a great opportunity to thank you for starting this.
> Of course I also owe the POV-team a debt of gratitude but it's nice to be
able
> to thank you in person.

Likewise.
Without a beginning there is nothing and the name David K. Buck is certainly
immortalized as the start of POV-Ray Trace.
It's been a great 8 years for me.
The changes have been no less than incredible since my first sight of version
2.0 (I even used v. 1.0 a few times) watching a low res. render placing pixel
by pixel onto a screen.  If there's one constant in POV it would be growth and
the many people using it.  That was evidenced at CompuServe back in the early
1990's.

Bob H.

Post a reply to this message

> The Legend Returns! Thank you for your contribution to what has become
> an excellent program and a lot of fun.

I'm flattered, but I hardly consider myself a legend.  I'm delighted, though,
that the program I wrote so many years ago has become such a success.  I, of
course, can't take credit for most of it.  It was the hard work of the POV-Ray
team that really built POV-Ray into what it is today.  I suspect that there is
hardly any of the original code in the current system.  That's the way these
projects work.

One thing I've always found is that the user community never ceased to amaze
me with their work.  When I wrote sample scenes in DKBTrace and POV-Ray, they
would normally be your classic textured spheres on checkerboard floors kind of
pictures.  I liked adding skys (because the texturing did them so well), but I
seldom worked hard to create a "really cool" image.  The only one I did that
was involved was the rendering of a Nortel switch with a computer, TV, and
telephone surrounding them.  I don't have the original sources, but I could
probably scan the image and post it so you can see it.

What I was saying was that the user community and the scenes they created were
always amazing to me.  For many scenes, I would have sworn that POV-Ray
couldn't have created it, but it did.  There was some talk earlier about Mike
Miller.  I found his scenes particularly incredible.  I also really like
"First Strike ar Pearl" and often use it as a sample image if I'm doing any
kind of image processing stuff.

These days, I'm working as a Smalltalk consultant.  (Did you know that
DKBTrace and POV-Ray had some Smalltalk concepts built into them?) I'm also
working hard on a commercial program which is a fun physics simulation package
for kids.  You can see a preview of the screen on http://www.simberon.com.  I
hope to have a public beta soon and a release in a few months.  I don't have
much time these days for raytracing, but I was talking about it to some people
I work with and showed them the povray.org site which led me here, so I
thought I'd say hi.

Anyway, I have to run for now.  Have fun (that was always the point anyway).

David Buck
dav### [at] simberoncom

Post a reply to this message

David Buck <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:
: What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world? I'm
: seeing some amazing things posted on the net.

  It's said that one image says more than a thousand words.
  This image is also my favorite:

http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2000-04-30/gt_city.jpg

-- 
char*i="b[7FK@`3NB6>B:b3O6>:B:b3O6><`3:;8:6f733:>::b?7B>:>^B>C73;S1";
main(_,c,m){for(m=32;c=*i++-49;c&m?puts(""):m)for(_=(
c/4)&7;putchar(m),_--?m:(_=(1<<(c&3))-1,(m^=3)&3););}    /*- Warp -*/

Post a reply to this message

"Chris Huff" wrote:
> I'm currently working on a "portal" pigment. (Basically,
> rays hit the pigment and stop, and reappear from somewhere
> else going in a different direction...at least that's what
> the user sees. Like a portal from one area to another.)

That so cool Chris! I've been thinking about such a feature lots of times.

Rune
--
\ Include files, tutorials, 3D images, raytracing jokes,
/ The POV Desktop Theme, and The POV-Ray Logo Contest can
\ all be found at http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk (updated January 6)
/ Also visit http://www.povrayusers.org

Post a reply to this message

Hi, I'm Rune S. Johansen and I've been using POV-Ray for 3 years only, but
what 3 years!

I want to thank you for starting all this! If it wasn't for you, POV-Ray
would not have been.

Here's a selected joke from my compiled list of raytracing jokes:

"You know you've been raytracing too long when you hear a name beginning
with the letter K and wonder if it's David Buck's middle name."

:)

Rune
--
\ Include files, tutorials, 3D images, raytracing jokes,
/ The POV Desktop Theme, and The POV-Ray Logo Contest can
\ all be found at http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk (updated January 6)
/ Also visit http://www.povrayusers.org

Post a reply to this message

"Rune" <run### [at] inamecom> wrote in message
news:3a6868e3$1@news.povray.org...
> "Chris Huff" wrote:
> > I'm currently working on a "portal" pigment. (Basically,
> > rays hit the pigment and stop, and reappear from somewhere
> > else going in a different direction...at least that's what
> > the user sees. Like a portal from one area to another.)
>
> That so cool Chris! I've been thinking about such a feature lots of times.
>

I seem to remember that this concept came up about 2 yrs ago... Was that you
or Chris?

Post a reply to this message

> "You know you've been raytracing too long when you hear a name beginning
> with the letter K and wonder if it's David Buck's middle name."

You don't think I'd ever reveal my full name, now would you??

David Kirk Buck
dav### [at] simberoncom

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:

> David Buck <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:
> : What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world? I'm
> : seeing some amazing things posted on the net.
>
>   It's said that one image says more than a thousand words.
>   This image is also my favorite:
>
> http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2000-04-30/gt_city.jpg

Ok, I have a new favorite picture.  Was this created with POV or MegaPOV?
This is totally incredible.  Do people publish the scene files for pictures
like this?  I'm still in awe.

David Buck
dav### [at] simberoncom

Post a reply to this message

"David Buck" <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote in message
news:3A687114.D58B3541@simberon.com...
>
>
> Warp wrote:
>
> > David Buck <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:
> > : What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world?
I'm
> > : seeing some amazing things posted on the net.
> >
> >   It's said that one image says more than a thousand words.
> >   This image is also my favorite:
> >
> > http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2000-04-30/gt_city.jpg
>
> Ok, I have a new favorite picture.  Was this created with POV or MegaPOV?
> This is totally incredible.  Do people publish the scene files for
pictures
> like this?  I'm still in awe.
>
> David Buck
> dav### [at] simberoncom
>

Megapov (it uses isosurfaces at the very least). Giles has written a nice
piece about its creation at:
http://www.oyonale.com/ressources/english/mkof11.htm

Giles' site has an amazing selection of his POV images.

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:45:01 -0500, David Buck <dav### [at] simberoncom>
wrote:

>Hi all.

<to all>

Sabunim kioh-ne!

>I'm the author of DKBTrace which, you may know, is the predecessor of 
>POV-Ray.  I offered the DKBTrace source to the POV-Ray team as a base 
>system and I served on the POV-Ray team for about two years.

Your name still appears in the credits section with each render :)

>What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world?  I'm
>seeing some amazing things posted on the net.

With all due regards, it was mostly the BBS crowd and some devoted
Compuserve folk who formed the POV-Ray community. It is now a world of
its own. People are constantly working on improvements, adding
features, hunting bugs, writing or re-writing documentation, creating
scenes and include files (and macros), etc. This very news server has
proven to be a binding force for POVers all over the world, with
visitors being helpful (mostly harmless :) ) folk with a strong sense
of community.

As of your appearance here, it is a honour for all of us. Your name is
likely as well known as those of Chris Young, Dan Farmer or Mike
Miller (there was a recent rush for locating Mike Miller's works). As
someone (Ken?) said, it has been immortalised. I hope your stay will
be long.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

Post a reply to this message

David Buck wrote:

> Warp wrote:
> > http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2000-04-30/gt_city.jpg
> Ok, I have a new favorite picture.  Was this created with POV or MegaPOV?
> This is totally incredible.  Do people publish the scene files for pictures
> like this?  I'm still in awe.

Hello
Like other people there, I'd like to thank you for starting all this, and
changing (for the best) many people lives in the process, including mine. I
started with POV 1.0 but then DKBTrace was still fresh. Strangely enough, I was
looking yesterday for information about Andreas Stabinger, the developer of
Raytrace, a nifty raytracer for Windows that was popular in Europe around
1992-1993. I switched to POVRay in 1993 because the scripting language made it
(already) more powerful.

About my "Wet Bird" pic (made with Megapov), one obvious thing is that POV-Ray
has become incredibly powerful and its output is now professional-looking.
However, complex scenes like this rely a lot on non-procedural objects and
textures (meshes and bitmaps, some of them bought from 3D vendors) which make
entire scenes files unfit to download either because of the size or because of
copyright reasons. So, in a way, Pov has become "mature", for the good and the
bad. Still, a  Pover will find on the net enough freebies to keep him/her happy
and busy for a while !

Gilles Tran

--

**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
Graphic experiments
Pov-ray gallery

Post a reply to this message

"David Buck" <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote in message
news:3A6### [at] simberoncom...
> seldom worked hard to create a "really cool" image.  The only one I did that
> was involved was the rendering of a Nortel switch with a computer, TV, and
> telephone surrounding them.  I don't have the original sources, but I could
> probably scan the image and post it so you can see it.

I for one would thoroughly love to see a work done by you, I can't say I ever
have before.

Bob H.

Post a reply to this message

In article <3a686948@news.povray.org>, "Tom Melly" <tom### [at] tomandlucouk> 
wrote:

> I seem to remember that this concept came up about 2 yrs ago... Was that 
> you or Chris?

Someone else (Xenoarch?) wrote a similar patch, I think he called it 
"hologram" though. (other names that got tossed around ranged from 
"magic_mirror" to "mirage"...)
I just got impatient waiting for it to show up, so I started writing my 
own. It currently works, but isn't very functional yet...I've been 
trying to implement the ability to use a camera as a portal (the effect 
would be similar to rendering the image from a different camera and 
using that image as an image_map, but would be done on the fly), and one 
of the problems is that the camera code assumes it is rendering pixels 
of the output image and that there is only one camera in the scene. (I 
had to make an almost identical copy of create_ray() which doesn't use 
the precalculated information for the main camera, duplicating a lot of 
code...and focal blur won't work for a while)

Followups to povray.unofficial.patches...

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

Post a reply to this message

I have wanted a similar feature, I envisioned it as an image map created by a
different camera in the same scene, but it was a bit of a headache and caused
nasty recursions when I thought about it.

Josh

Chris Huff wrote:

> In article <3A6755CD.920FCBDB@simberon.com>, David Buck
> <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:
>
> > Hi all.  I just found this newsgroup recently and I'm amazed at all the
> > traffic on it.  It seems that POV-Ray has come a long way form it's
> > humble beginnings back in '85 or so.  I'm the author of DKBTrace which,
> > you may know, is the predecessor of POV-Ray.  I offered the DKBTrace
> > source to the POV-Ray team as a base system and I served on the POV-Ray
> > team for about two years.
> >
> > What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world?  I'm
> > seeing some amazing things posted on the net.
>
> Well, probably the first would be MegaPOV, which contains most of the
> third party patches people have written:
> http://nathan.kopp.com/patched.htm
>
> Some of the more interesting things: isosurfaces described by functions
> you specify in the scene file, photon mapping for realistic refractive
> and reflective caustics, angle-dependant reflection...
>
> A page with demo images of most of the patches is here:
> http://users.skynet.be/smellenbergh/demo.html
>
> There are also patches for object tesselation and deformation in
> progress, a possible OpenGL rendering patch, a particle system patch
> (http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/images/particleFountain.jpg), and
> several other things...I'm currently working on a "portal" pigment.
> (Basically, rays hit the pigment and stop, and reappear from somewhere
> else going in a different direction...at least that's what the user
> sees. Like a portal from one area to another.)
>
> --
> Christopher James Huff
> Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
> TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/
>
> <><

--
Josh English -- Lexiphanic Lethomaniac
eng### [at] spiritonecom
The POV-Ray Cyclopedia http://www.spiritone.com/~english/cyclopedia/

Post a reply to this message

In article <3A68A881.1BDE637F@spiritone.com>, Josh English 
<eng### [at] spiritonecom> wrote:

> I have wanted a similar feature, I envisioned it as an image map 
> created by a different camera in the same scene,

That is exactly how one of it's features will work.


> but it was a bit of a headache and caused nasty recursions when I 
> thought about it.

It can cause recursion, but no more nasty than reflection. It will 
probably be affected by max_trace_level like anything else.

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

Post a reply to this message

In article <3A6### [at] simberoncom>, David Buck 
<dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:

> These days, I'm working as a Smalltalk consultant.  (Did you know that
> DKBTrace and POV-Ray had some Smalltalk concepts built into them?)

I'd noticed some OOP stuff in the code, the object methods for instance. 
Or were you speaking of the scene language?
I'm currently learning Objective C, an OOP extended version of C which 
apparently borrowed most of it's concepts from Smalltalk.


> I'm also working hard on a commercial program which is a fun physics 
> simulation package for kids.  You can see a preview of the screen on 
> http://www.simberon.com.  I hope to have a public beta soon and a 
> release in a few months. 

Sounds interesting, though there isn't much info on the page...
I suppose you'll want to finish the program first, though. ;-)


> I don't have much time these days for raytracing, but I was talking 
> about it to some people I work with and showed them the povray.org 
> site which led me here, so I thought I'd say hi.

Well, it's nice to see the creator of this program drop in...you 
certainly started something.
BTW, if you haven't already found them, there are some messages about 
the current status and future plans for POV-Ray in 
povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions that you may find 
interesting. Particularly "POV-Team Status Report - September 1, 2000" 
by Chris Cason.

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

Post a reply to this message

> > but it was a bit of a headache and caused nasty recursions when I 
> > thought about it.
> 
> It can cause recursion, but no more nasty than reflection. It will 
> probably be affected by max_trace_level like anything else.

Anybody remembers the twisted TV cameras looking at their own outputs in
chapter XV of "Goedel, Escher and Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter ? Would be
nice if Pov-Ray was able to reproduce the pulsating, chaotic galaxy
images they generates on the TV screen :-)

Stephane.

Post a reply to this message

In article <1eni9zz.3lujdx14tvfsyN%Stephane.Nicolet@ens.fr>, 
Ste### [at] ensfr (Stephane Nicolet) wrote:

> Anybody remembers the twisted TV cameras looking at their own outputs in
> chapter XV of "Goedel, Escher and Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter ?

Well, no...actually, I have no idea what you are talking about, aside 
from the arrangement of a camera looking at it's own output.


> Would be nice if Pov-Ray was able to reproduce the pulsating, chaotic 
> galaxy images they generates on the TV screen :-)

Well, there are many variables in that system...(screen pixels, scanning 
of the CRT, delays in the line, etc...), but you might get some 
interesting effects with warps and various portal parameters.

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

Post a reply to this message

David Buck wrote:

> Hi all.  I just found this newsgroup recently and I'm amazed at all the
> traffic on it.  It seems that POV-Ray has come a long way form it's
> humble beginnings back in '85 or so.  I'm the author of DKBTrace which,
> you may know, is the predecessor of POV-Ray.  I offered the DKBTrace
> source to the POV-Ray team as a base system and I served on the POV-Ray
> team for about two years.
>
> What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world?  I'm
> seeing some amazing things posted on the net.

Nice to see you here!

I'd say probably the single most important addition in 3.1 is macros. Now
you can automate and calculate just about anything, though it's also much
easier to get looooong parse times. ;) There is a continuing skyrocket in
the quality of work posted here, thanks to continued development and a large
community. MegaPOV is simply loaded with great features too, and many will
be in 3.5.

--
David Fontaine  <dav### [at] faricynet>  ICQ 55354965
My raytracing gallery:  http://davidf.faricy.net/

Post a reply to this message

David Buck wrote in message <3A6### [at] simberoncom>...
>These days, I'm working as a Smalltalk consultant.  (Did you know that
>DKBTrace and POV-Ray had some Smalltalk concepts built into them?)

Looking at the code I saw that it is just a few days work from becoming a
complete C++ source. By the way, had not POV one of the most
anti-free-software licenses I ever saw (barring commercial software), I
would gladly do this job myself.

Alessandro Coppo
a.c### [at] iolit

P.S.: a GREAT thank you for having started all this!

Post a reply to this message

Ah... old POVers never die, they just trace at 0 pps...

:)

Welcome back David!  :D

--
Lance.

http://come.to/the.zone

Post a reply to this message

"Alessandro Coppo" <a.c### [at] iolit> wrote in <3a68de3d$1@news.povray.org>:

>
>David Buck wrote in message <3A6### [at] simberoncom>...
>>These days, I'm working as a Smalltalk consultant.  (Did you know that
>>DKBTrace and POV-Ray had some Smalltalk concepts built into them?)
>
>Looking at the code I saw that it is just a few days work from becoming a
>complete C++ source. By the way, had not POV one of the most
>anti-free-software licenses I ever saw (barring commercial software), I
>would gladly do this job myself.
>
>Alessandro Coppo
>a.c### [at] iolit
>
>P.S.: a GREAT thank you for having started all this!
>
>
>
>

I agree that the PovRay license is currently inadequate.  In fact, I think 
their whole software development philosophy is counter-productive... If 
they would just OpenSource it like most other free projects out there, and 
allow an open development process (similar to Linux), we wouldn't have to 
all be sitting here waiting in the dark for the next release.  Of coarse, I 
shouldn't be complaining, considering that PovRay is just plain awesome, 
but sometimes I get frustrated.  Just my 2 cents.

Hookflash

Post a reply to this message

> > These days, I'm working as a Smalltalk consultant.  (Did you know that
> > DKBTrace and POV-Ray had some Smalltalk concepts built into them?)
>
> I'd noticed some OOP stuff in the code, the object methods for instance.
> Or were you speaking of the scene language?
> I'm currently learning Objective C, an OOP extended version of C which
> apparently borrowed most of it's concepts from Smalltalk.

I was referring to the method table dispatch to make different objects work
the same way.  It was a technique I learned in Smalltalk in 1984.

> > I'm also working hard on a commercial program which is a fun physics
> > simulation package for kids.  You can see a preview of the screen on
> > http://www.simberon.com.  I hope to have a public beta soon and a
> > release in a few months.
>
> Sounds interesting, though there isn't much info on the page...
> I suppose you'll want to finish the program first, though. ;-)

Yeah, the web page isn't very good unless there's a program to go with it.
I'll let you know when the beta is available.

David Buck
dav### [at] simberoncom

Post a reply to this message

Lance Birch wrote:

> Ah... old POVers never die, they just trace at 0 pps...
>
> :)
>
> Welcome back David!  :D

Oh great, I just realized, we have yet another David here now. >;)

--
David Fontaine  <dav### [at] faricynet>  ICQ 55354965
My raytracing gallery:  http://davidf.faricy.net/

Post a reply to this message

Chris Huff wrote:

> Well, no...actually, I have no idea what you are talking about, aside
> from the arrangement of a camera looking at it's own output.

Well, I've never seen the examples in the books, but I have seen a video
feedback loop.  Pretty psychedelic :)  Unfortunately, POVray works in an
"ideal" universe, in which such things as feedback noise don't have an effect.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

On 19 Jan 2001 21:37:22 -0500, hoo### [at] hotmailcom (Hookflash)
wrote:

>I agree that the PovRay license is currently inadequate.

No it is not. A lot of the code in POV-Ray has been donated by
individuals for the sole purpose of being used in POV-Ray. Many of
them cannot be reached now (for example Pascal Massimino, author of
the julia code). Their copyrights have to be protected so the license
clearly states that a) you can tweak all you want at home and b) you
have to keep POV-Ray being POV-Ray, i.e. you can't just extract the
parser and plug it into your own tracer, for example.

>In fact, I think their whole software development philosophy is 
>counter-productive... 

An opinion which is wholly outweighed by the number of patches people
have been writing. Were it not for the numerous patch writers and
especially Ron Parker and Nathan Kopp, POV would have never reached
the heights that it now stands on. And it is because of the
availability of the source that all this is possible.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:45:01 -0500, David Buck wrote...
> Hi all.  I just found this newsgroup recently and I'm amazed at all the
> traffic on it.  It seems that POV-Ray has come a long way form it's
> humble beginnings back in '85 or so.  I'm the author of DKBTrace which,
> you may know, is the predecessor of POV-Ray.  I offered the DKBTrace
> source to the POV-Ray team as a base system and I served on the POV-Ray
> team for about two years.
> 
> What exciting things are happening these days in the POV-Ray world?  I'm
> seeing some amazing things posted on the net.

Congratulations, you're responsible for the single most long lived piece 
of software on my computer.  By that, I mean it's been installed on every 
system I've owned since about 1993 when I had a 486DX2/66 with 4 Megs of 
Ram...  (the fact that I've now got more RAM in my system than I had HDD 
space in my first system is beside the point :)

Bye for now,
     Jamie.

Post a reply to this message

In article <3A6### [at] hotmailcom>, Ben Chambers 
<bdc### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:

> Well, I've never seen the examples in the books, but I have seen a video
> feedback loop.  Pretty psychedelic :)  Unfortunately, POVray works in an
> "ideal" universe, in which such things as feedback noise don't have an 
> effect.

Hint: you can turbulate (and apply other warps to) portals. :-)

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

Post a reply to this message

Peter Popov wrote in message ...
>On 19 Jan 2001 21:37:22 -0500, hoo### [at] hotmailcom (Hookflash)
>wrote:
>
>>I agree that the PovRay license is currently inadequate.
>
>No it is not.

Just an example: may I study the source and the algorithms and use this
knowledge indipendently? Some are documented in books like Foley/VanDam etc.
so in fact you can only quarrel about the actual code (or we have to start
talking about prior art instead of raytraced art?)

If the license is not going to switch to an OSI (Open Source Initiative)
approved one (there are 20+ if I remember well, so you (PovTeam members) can
easily find one that suits you).... well, with new versions coming out at ~3
years interval (glacial rate for OpenSource projects), and the current POV
license I am tempted not to find alternatives (can you spell Ray++ (LGPL) or
Panorama (GPL) or Raja (GPL)?), but to write them. This is not an empty
threat. I am currently working at a Java tool which completely (well, in the
future ;-)) maps POV language and can emit it, becoming the core for a
super-macro engine (describe your scene in Java + all libraries you need
plus all the power of Java and then just tell it to emit #macro-less pov
code to be rendered by POV or MegaPOV, may be even driving the command line
version of the engine). In a few days work I have created a working
prototype which I want to refine before releasing. Given the knowledge about
raytracing I have gathered from references, I think I might even have a
partial POV-clone on air before Christmas... which is something which tempts
me much if the license is so adequate... (and if you say Java is slow, well
I have experience of very fast ports from Java to C++ at the rate of several
classes per day).

I really (and I am sure there are many other people like me) would like to
cooperate DIRECTLY to POVRay and not creat YACRC (yet another clean room
clone), but NOT at the current conditions.

Well, it was said a few months ago on this newsserver that this was a
post-3.5 subject and this is just a preview of my thoughts. I hope that this
is not the start of a war because it is done with the most constructive
frame of mind (I am a developer, not a lawyer or a troll).

Alessandro Coppo
a.c### [at] iolit

P.S.: I have an idea: if you received POV-only contributions which tie you
to the current license, what stops you (I would like to say us!) to create a
clean-room pov-clone without these contributions? For example, MegaPOV
simple dropped GIFs when licensing become unbearable.

Bye bye!!!!

Post a reply to this message

In article <Xns902EBD2AFBF32hookflashhotmailcom@204.213.191.228>, 
hoo### [at] hotmailcom (Hookflash) wrote:

> I agree that the PovRay license is currently inadequate.  In fact, I 
> think their whole software development philosophy is 
> counter-productive... If they would just OpenSource it like most 
> other free projects out there, and allow an open development process 
> (similar to Linux), we wouldn't have to all be sitting here waiting 
> in the dark for the next release.  Of coarse, I shouldn't be 
> complaining, considering that PovRay is just plain awesome, but 
> sometimes I get frustrated.  Just my 2 cents.

Um, what's wrong with MegaPOV? I wouldn't call it "waiting in the dark" 
with things like MegaPOV available...and perhaps you just haven't 
noticed, but there has been a small explosion of new patches lately.

As for the license: modifying POV-Ray is allowed, it just has to remain 
"POV-Ray"...you can't just strip out the renderer and use the parser, or 
use code from it in your own projects, the modified version has to 
retain the functionality of the official version. This seems to be quite 
a reasonable requirement to me...or were you talking about the other 
restrictions?

And a much more "open" development model is planned for POV 4.0. For 
more information, read the message "POV-Team Status Report - September 
1, 2000" by Chris Cason in povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions.

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

Post a reply to this message

>Um, what's wrong with MegaPOV? I wouldn't call it "waiting in the dark" 
>with things like MegaPOV available...and perhaps you just haven't 
>noticed, but there has been a small explosion of new patches lately.

I love MegaPov, but we are being kept waiting in the dark as far as the 
actual development schedule is concerned.  If someone on this newsgroup 
asks when 3.5 will be released, they will get several "When it's ready" 
responses, which are pretty much useless.

>As for the license: modifying POV-Ray is allowed, it just has to remain 
>"POV-Ray"...you can't just strip out the renderer and use the parser, or 
>use code from it in your own projects, the modified version has to 
>retain the functionality of the official version. This seems to be quite 
>a reasonable requirement to me...or were you talking about the other 
>restrictions?

I, personally, have no desire to strip out the renderer and use the parser 
or anything of the sort, but I don't really see what harm there would be in 
doing so.  That's the whole idea behind OpenSource:  Sharing of source and 
ideas.  Peter Popov mentioned that some parts of PovRay were written by 
people who can no longer be contacted, and therefore using their code 
without restriction (and without their permission) could lead to trouble.  
Well, I don't think these people would've contributed their code with that 
sort of attitude; and, even if they had, are they really going to take the 
time/effort to cause trouble?

>And a much more "open" development model is planned for POV 4.0. For 
>more information, read the message "POV-Team Status Report - September 
>1, 2000" by Chris Cason in povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions.
>

This is a relief, but, at the current rate of PovRay development, I don't 
know if I'll live that long;-P

Post a reply to this message

Alessandro Coppo wrote:

> easily find one that suits you).... well, with new versions coming out at ~3
> years interval (glacial rate for OpenSource projects), and the current POV

What features are missing that you are waiting for?  I for one am against
releasing a program simply so you can say it was released recently;  if no
significant contribution has been made, why release another version?
And, if there _are_ features missing, can you easily obtain those features in an
unofficial version?  If so, then why are you complaining?

> license I am tempted not to find alternatives (can you spell Ray++ (LGPL) or
> Panorama (GPL) or Raja (GPL)?), but to write them. This is not an empty
> threat. I am currently working at a Java tool which completely (well, in the\

Sorry, but I almost laughed at the word "threat". :)  If you do not wish to use
POV-Ray, don't use it.  There are plenty of alternatives available, and each one
suits a different group of people.  If you are more fully satisfied with a
different piece of software, by all means use that software.


By the way, I just read the povlegal.doc, and I found it perfectly reasonable.
Basically, they say:  You can't make money off of POV-Ray.  Only the POV-Team
can publish official versions of POV-Ray (but you can publish unofficial ones).
You can't remove features from POV-Ray (making a 'crippled' distribution).  It
seems quite reasonable to me...  Which, exactly, are the portions you complain
of?

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

In article <Xns902F9BC79418Fhookflashhotmailcom@204.213.191.228>, 
hoo### [at] hotmailcom (Hookflash) wrote:

> I love MegaPov, but we are being kept waiting in the dark as far as the 
> actual development schedule is concerned.  If someone on this newsgroup 
> asks when 3.5 will be released, they will get several "When it's ready" 
> responses, which are pretty much useless.

Well, that *is* the answer...there is no way to predict the final 
release date. All of the information has been given: it is not yet beta, 
not all of the additions have been completed, but it will have most of 
the new features of MegaPOV, the feature list has been frozen, the 
features just have to be implemented and tested, and nobody knows when 
it will reach beta, let alone final release.


> I, personally, have no desire to strip out the renderer and use the 
> parser or anything of the sort, but I don't really see what harm 
> there would be in doing so. 

Basically: it wouldn't be POV-Ray any more. The harm would be in someone 
pulling out the renderer to use in their own program or distributing 
crippled versions.


> That's the whole idea behind OpenSource: 
>  Sharing of source and ideas. 

POV-Ray is *not* Open Source. It is copyrighted freeware, and the source 
code is available, but that does not make it "Open Source". And there is 
nothing wrong with that...the authors wanted tighter control over 
*their* project. The idea behind releasing the source was to:
"1) promote the porting of POV-Ray to hardware and operating systems 
which the POV-Team cannot support. 2) promote experimentation and 
development of new features to the core code which might eventually be 
incorporated into the official version.  3) provide insight into the 
inner workings of the program for educational purposes."
(from povlegal.doc)

POV-Ray 4.0 may become Open Source, however...as mentioned in the latest 
status report.


> Peter Popov mentioned that some parts of PovRay were written by 
> people who can no longer be contacted, and therefore using their code 
> without restriction (and without their permission) could lead to 
> trouble. 
> Well, I don't think these people would've contributed their code with 
> that sort of attitude; and, even if they had, are they really going 
> to take the time/effort to cause trouble?

It doesn't matter whether it will cause trouble or not, their permission 
should be obtained first. Similarly, it doesn't matter if you think they 
wouldn't mind.


> >And a much more "open" development model is planned for POV 4.0. For 
> >more information, read the message "POV-Team Status Report - 
> >September 1, 2000" by Chris Cason in 
> >povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions.
> 
> This is a relief, but, at the current rate of PovRay development, I 
> don't know if I'll live that long;-P

I assure you, development *is* being done on it. POV-Ray hasn't been 
abandoned.
But also remember that the POV-Team is doing this as a hobby in their 
free time...they do not make money off of it, and in many cases spend 
money on it. If you want the latest, go get MegaPOV.

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

Post a reply to this message

In article <3a69c38a@news.povray.org>, "Alessandro Coppo" 
<a.c### [at] iolit> wrote:

> Just an example: may I study the source and the algorithms and use 
> this knowledge indipendently? Some are documented in books like 
> Foley/VanDam etc. so in fact you can only quarrel about the actual 
> code (or we have to start talking about prior art instead of 
> raytraced art?)

I believe that is well covered in the license. Specifically, "3) 
provide insight into the inner workings of the program for educational 
purposes."
The fact that the code is copyrighted doesn't mean you can't use the 
algorithms...the POV Team doesn't have a patent on raytracing. ;-)


...snip...
What *exactly* is wrong with the current license? Aside from the fact 
that it isn't Open Source? What do you want to do with it but can't 
because the license prohibits it?
If you find another piece of software that does what you want and has a 
license, why not just use that instead? POV can't do everything for 
everyone...and it's license can't satisfy everyone either. But in order 
to get good feedback or any kind of possible improvement, you need to 
say more than "it is inadequate", because it does what it was intended 
to do.


> P.S.: I have an idea: if you received POV-only contributions which 
> tie you to the current license, what stops you (I would like to say 
> us!) to create a clean-room pov-clone without these contributions? 
> For example, MegaPOV simple dropped GIFs when licensing become 
> unbearable.

Are you talking about rewriting the program? This is already planned, 
read the latest status report about the plans for POV 4.0. It is in the 
povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions group.

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

Post a reply to this message

Chris Huff <chr### [at] maccom> wrote in <chrishuff-
2A3607.20410720012001@news.povray.org>:

>In article <Xns902F9BC79418Fhookflashhotmailcom@204.213.191.228>, 
>hoo### [at] hotmailcom (Hookflash) wrote:
>
>> I love MegaPov, but we are being kept waiting in the dark as far as the 
>> actual development schedule is concerned.  If someone on this newsgroup 
>> asks when 3.5 will be released, they will get several "When it's ready" 
>> responses, which are pretty much useless.
>
>Well, that *is* the answer...there is no way to predict the final 
>release date. All of the information has been given: it is not yet beta, 
>not all of the additions have been completed, but it will have most of 
>the new features of MegaPOV, the feature list has been frozen, the 
>features just have to be implemented and tested, and nobody knows when 
>it will reach beta, let alone final release.

That's why I dislike the current development model... The only information 
we get about the process is whatever the developers decide to tell us.  I 
would prefer a more open, community-oriented approach (OpenSource, 
basically).  But maybe that's just my preference.

>> I, personally, have no desire to strip out the renderer and use the 
>> parser or anything of the sort, but I don't really see what harm 
>> there would be in doing so. 
>
>Basically: it wouldn't be POV-Ray any more. The harm would be in someone 
>pulling out the renderer to use in their own program or distributing 
>crippled versions.

And what harm would there be in that?  If someone wants to use the renderer 
in their own program or distribute a crippled version, who cares?  If it's 
not PovRay anymore, they can use a different name and logo.

>It doesn't matter whether it will cause trouble or not, their permission 
>should be obtained first. Similarly, it doesn't matter if you think they 
>wouldn't mind.

How can we obtain their permission when we can't contact them?

>I assure you, development *is* being done on it. POV-Ray hasn't been 
>abandoned.
>But also remember that the POV-Team is doing this as a hobby in their 
>free time...they do not make money off of it, and in many cases spend 
>money on it. If you want the latest, go get MegaPOV.

I appreciate the work the PovTeam is doing, but I think it would be easier 
on them *and* the community if we had a more open development model.  Of 
coarse, I could be wrong (it's happened once or twice before... j/k;-)

Hookflash

Post a reply to this message

> And what harm would there be in that?  If someone wants to use the
renderer
> in their own program or distribute a crippled version, who cares?  If it's
> not PovRay anymore, they can use a different name and logo.

LOL, yeah I'll just take the object source code that's supplied with 3D
Studio MAX Commercial, and I'll call it something different and change it
slightly, and I'll sell it, there's no harm in that, after all, it won't be
the 3D Studio MAX object source anymore.

--
Lance.

http://come.to/the.zone

Post a reply to this message

Hookflash wrote:
> 
> >Well, that *is* the answer...there is no way to predict the final
> >release date. All of the information has been given: it is not yet beta,
> >not all of the additions have been completed, but it will have most of
> >the new features of MegaPOV, the feature list has been frozen, the
> >features just have to be implemented and tested, and nobody knows when
> >it will reach beta, let alone final release.
> 
> That's why I dislike the current development model... The only information
> we get about the process is whatever the developers decide to tell us.  I
> would prefer a more open, community-oriented approach (OpenSource,
> basically).

OpenSource does not mean that the development stages are done in the
open.  It means that once released, the code is available to everyone to
tinker with and reuse.

> >> I, personally, have no desire to strip out the renderer and use the
> >> parser or anything of the sort, but I don't really see what harm
> >> there would be in doing so.
> >
> >Basically: it wouldn't be POV-Ray any more. The harm would be in someone
> >pulling out the renderer to use in their own program or distributing
> >crippled versions.
> 
> And what harm would there be in that?

You are using someone's work without their permission.

> If someone wants to use the renderer
> in their own program or distribute a crippled version, who cares?

The people who wrote the renderer seem to care enough to ask you in
POVLEGAL.DOC not to do it.

>  If it's
> not PovRay anymore, they can use a different name and logo.
> 
> >It doesn't matter whether it will cause trouble or not, their permission
> >should be obtained first. Similarly, it doesn't matter if you think they
> >wouldn't mind.
> 
> How can we obtain their permission when we can't contact them?
> 

Hence the reason why you can't reuse their code.

> >I assure you, development *is* being done on it. POV-Ray hasn't been
> >abandoned.
> >But also remember that the POV-Team is doing this as a hobby in their
> >free time...they do not make money off of it, and in many cases spend
> >money on it. If you want the latest, go get MegaPOV.
> 
> I appreciate the work the PovTeam is doing, but I think it would be easier
> on them *and* the community if we had a more open development model.  Of
> coarse, I could be wrong (it's happened once or twice before... j/k;-)

What do you mean by "a more open development model" exactly?

-- 
Francois Labreque | In the future, performance will be measured
    flabreque     | by the size of your pipe.
        @         |             - Dogbert, on networking
   videotron.ca

Post a reply to this message

On 20 Jan 2001 23:23:03 -0500 Hookflash wrote:

>That's why I dislike the current development model... The only information 
>we get about the process is whatever the developers decide to tell us.  I 
>would prefer a more open, community-oriented approach (OpenSource, 
>basically).  But maybe that's just my preference.

  We prefer not to get into discussions on the progress of an upcoming
release. It's time *not* spent on development. Sorry if this is not to
everyone's liking but there are a lot of real world issues that warrant
more concern than what day POV-Ray will be released. Guarantee one
thing, though - you'll hear it first on this news server <s>.

-- 
Alan - ako### [at] povrayorg - a k o n g <at> p o v r a y <dot> o r g
http://www.povray.org - Home of the Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer

Post a reply to this message

Hookflash wrote:

> That's why I dislike the current development model... The only information
> we get about the process is whatever the developers decide to tell us.  I
> would prefer a more open, community-oriented approach (OpenSource,
> basically).  But maybe that's just my preference.

As a user, I would not like POV-Ray to become as clumsy as most
open source projects, where you have things like :
 latest build : 3.1.1.5b
 latest stable build : 3.0.1a

Users of POV-Ray needs compatibility of scenes, and needs to count
on stable, reliable, coherent versions of their software. I would
not like to have to choose between "RedHat POV-Ray", "POV-Ray Suse",
"Corel POV", etc..  Before MegaPOV, there were several patches
availiable, and it was sometimes a headache for advanced users,
to choose between availiable features frome one or another.

The current situation, with an official, officially supported,
version (3.1g), and a semi-official, full of new features version
(MP), is fine, from a user point of view.

Fabien.

Post a reply to this message

On 20 Jan 2001 18:20:25 -0500, hoo### [at] hotmailcom (Hookflash)
wrote:

>Peter Popov mentioned that some parts of PovRay were written by 
>people who can no longer be contacted, and therefore using their code 
>without restriction (and without their permission) could lead to trouble.  

I don't recall mentioning trouble. And I don't think anyone would
start causing trouble. There are moral issues involved, though.

>Well, I don't think these people would've contributed their code with that 
>sort of attitude; and, even if they had, are they really going to take the 
>time/effort to cause trouble?

I doubt they would but still it doesn't give anyone full rights over
these contributors' code.

>>And a much more "open" development model is planned for POV 4.0. For 
>>more information, read the message "POV-Team Status Report - September 
>>1, 2000" by Chris Cason in povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions.

>This is a relief, but, at the current rate of PovRay development, I don't 
>know if I'll live that long;-P

The POV Team members work on POV in whatever free time they can steal
from making a living and having a real life. They are doing it for
free. How would you feel if you were in their position and people keep
asking why development is slow? Think about it.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

Post a reply to this message

All right, let's stop it here as it is basically boiling down to an "Open
Source is good / Open Source is bad" flame war. As I wrote before, I like
coding and not quarreling.

Now I know for sure that I have to embark in a loooong project... I hope to
post news (and code) in a couple of months ;-)

Alessandro Coppo
a.c### [at] iolit

P.S.: Open Source is different from Richard Stallman's Free Software: if you
don't think so, goto http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/ . Other interesting
references are http://www.opensource.org/ and http://www.opencontent.org/
for an example that all this does not apply only to code.

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