I have uploaded the first version of Sim-POV - a mechanical simulation
system for POV-Ray - to my website:

http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/simpov/

There are still a lot of unfinished things in that patch - a lot of
functions i would have liked to implement. But i think it is good to
release it now, even with a somewhat limited functionality.  Most of those
things part of the released version are fairly well tested.

The documentation is quite complete including a tutorial for the first
steps.  But care should be taken when using the macros in the
'mechsim.inc' include file.  It is not that easy to use in some parts and
not designed to be fool proof.

Now the bad side of the whole thing - i have only prepared a source code
release right now.  I could have made a linux compile but most people
using linux won't have problems compiling their own binary anyway.  I
thought about creating a Windows binary with the free borland compiler but
since simulations are usually quite computationally intensive i thought it
would probably not be of much use to offer a version significantly slower
than the official binary.  If anyone could make a fast windows (or mac)
compile i would be happy to offer it too.

And finally i would like to give credits to ABX for his triangle distance
function that is part of the simulation engine.  The f_triangle patch
itself is also included in this version.  Thanks also to Christophe
Bouffartigue for his work on Clothray - i used a several ideas and code
elements from him in this patch.  I also wanted to include the Clothray
patch itself in this version but did not yet receive an answer from him on
that matter.  

Also included in Sim-POV are my radiosity improvements.  These are even
more experimental than the simulation system but could be interesting to
test if they are useful in some cases.

That's it for the moment, have fun trying it. 

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 28 Oct. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 11:30:04 +0100, Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde>
wrote:
> I have uploaded the first version of Sim-POV - a mechanical simulation
> system for POV-Ray - to my website:
> http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/simpov/

Incredible amount of good work.

ABX

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Christoph Hormann wrote:
>I have uploaded the first version of Sim-POV - a mechanical simulation
>system for POV-Ray - to my website:
>
>http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/simpov/


I just looked at all the pictures and mpeg's included and I must say it
looks absolutely brilliant!!! I'm very impressed. Now I need to find a use
for these features.


Thomas

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this is very exciting stuff - good work Christoph!!

Christoph Hormann wrote:

> I have uploaded the first version of Sim-POV - a mechanical simulation
> system for POV-Ray - to my website:
> 
> http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/simpov/

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I am drooling at the prospects after looking at the samples.  However, I am
a novice at porting code (nor do I have a *NIX box).  As soon as someone
ports Sim-POV to Win32, please post it and let us know!


"benp" <ben### [at] rspcomau> wrote in message news:3DC### [at] rspcomau...
> this is very exciting stuff - good work Christoph!!
>
> Christoph Hormann wrote:
>
> > I have uploaded the first version of Sim-POV - a mechanical simulation
> > system for POV-Ray - to my website:
> >
> > http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/simpov/
>

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cadman wrote:
> 
> I am drooling at the prospects after looking at the samples.  However, I am
> a novice at porting code (nor do I have a *NIX box).  As soon as someone
> ports Sim-POV to Win32, please post it and let us know!
> 

There is nothing to port, the patches are only modifying the platform
independent part.

None the less i have meanwhile managed to get the Cygwin/MinGW system
compile POV-Ray 3.5 and the a compiled command line version is available
now.  But be warned - despite now using gcc 3.2 the program is still quite
a bit slower than the official version.  Some numbers (with a modified
version of benchmark.pov, tested on a K6):

official WinPOV (Intel): 449 sec (parse: 18 sec)
SlimePOV (msvc):         463 sec (parse: 20 sec)
PoPOV (free Borland):    561 sec (parse: 39 sec)
MinGW (-O2):             483 sec (parse: 42 sec)
MinGW (-O3):             463 sec (parse: 38 sec)

These values are just quick tests so the actual speed differences could be
somewhat different but in tendency it is quite a bit faster than the
borland compiler but not as fast as the Intel and msvc version.

Compiling with Cygwin/MinGW involved quite some modifications (see
povray.unix for more details).  The version for download is the '-O3'
optimized version with static libraries and no graphics display.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 02 Nov. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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> official WinPOV (Intel): 449 sec (parse: 18 sec)
> SlimePOV (msvc):         463 sec (parse: 20 sec)

Heeey! Not bad!

I really gotta fix up the bug(s) and reupload a new version, though...

 - Slime
[ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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