I just had a silly idea:

Imagine a form on a Web page.
It will have a combo box allowing to select some (low) resolutions, an
upload zone to provide image maps and height fields, and a text area to type
or paste scenes.
Perhaps also a combo box to insert some preset scenes.

You hit the Render button, and the Web server answer by a page giving the
messages and the rendered image (unless there is a parse error, of
course)...

What's the use?

- Show a friend what is a ray-tracer from his house.
- Try before you buy, er, download... You can copy some code snippets from
the Internet and see what they look like.
- Continue your favorite activity even on the move, from any Internet
cafe...
- Allow to make some logos, using predefined scenes where the user has just
to type some text.
- Etc.

We can even imagine a paid zone, where users would be allowed to keep their
scenes, uploaded images (with otherwise would have a limited life span) and
rendered images. They would be allowed to render at higher resolution and to
set whatever setting they want...

Of course, you need a very robust server... :-)

-- #=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=# --
Philippe Lhoste (Paris -- France)
Professional programmer and amateur artist
http://jove.prohosting.com/~philho/

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Philippe Lhoste <Phi### [at] gmxnet> wrote:
> I just had a silly idea:

  I don't know about silliness, but at least it's old. There have been many
implementations of this.

  The problem: Security.

-- 
#macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
[1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
-1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Philippe Lhoste <Phi### [at] gmxnet> wrote:
> > I just had a silly idea:
>
>   I don't know about silliness, but at least it's old. There have been
many
> implementations of this.

I wasn't especting to be the first one to have this idea :-). I just didn't
meet such a site.

>   The problem: Security.

I am aware that running a script language on a Web server has security
issues.

The first problems coming to the mind are infinite loops and huge memory
comsumption (big arrays). I believe Unix can set CPU and memory quotas on
processes. Or one can hack the engine to stop when a thresold is reached,
since it seems to track memory usage and CPU time.

Next obvious problem is file IO (trying to read or overwrite system files).
Unix already has a good protection for this, but to be on the safe side,
these functions can be desactivated (already possible, at least on the
Windows version). It would hinder only a small fraction of scenes. Or they
can be more secure by removing the paths they can containt, and force them
on predefined directories.

Same for some file accessing instructions, like heigh_field, image_map, ttf,
etc.

Now, I probably overlook some other issues. And the idea was theoritical, I
don't intend to make such a server :-)

Regards.

-- #=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=# --
Philippe Lhoste (Paris -- France)
Professional programmer and amateur artist
http://jove.prohosting.com/~philho/

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On Thu, 1 Aug 2002 15:44:25 +0200, "Philippe Lhoste" <Phi### [at] GMXnet> wrote:
> I wasn't especting to be the first one to have this idea :-). I just didn't
> meet such a site.

http://www.badcheese.com/~steve/index.php?page_title=Povray

ABX

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"ABX" <abx### [at] babilonorg> wrote in message
news:j4fikukshs0c9hmqmeahl319038b443l7n@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 1 Aug 2002 15:44:25 +0200, "Philippe Lhoste" <Phi### [at] GMXnet> wrote:
> > I wasn't especting to be the first one to have this idea :-). I just didn't
> > meet such a site.
>
> http://www.badcheese.com/~steve/index.php?page_title=Povray
>

Hmm, just tried this. Very good. One oddity is that it rendered the image twice
and sent me two copies. Don't think I pressed anything twice. Hang on, I'll
check again....

Nope, just once that time. Luser Error...

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Philippe Lhoste wrote:
> 
> What's the use?
> 
> - Show a friend what is a ray-tracer from his house.

Can be done more quickly with POV-Ray and a test scene on a CD-ROM.

Five minutes to install, one minute to demonstrate the render.

> - Try before you buy, er, download... You can copy some code snippets
> from the Internet and see what they look like.

A snippet from one of the groups can be cut-and-pasted into POV-Ray
(which every real user has running all the time anyway).  A major
scene file, available for download, should have an accompanying .JPG
or three.

> - Continue your favorite activity even on the move, from any Internet
> cafe...

A laptop with POV-Ray does the trick.  Back in September I was
modeling a birthday cake in the departure lounge at Philly IA.

> Of course, you need a very robust server... :-)

Wouldn't be enough use to justify the trouble.

Regards,
John

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"John VanSickle" <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Philippe Lhoste wrote:
> >
> > What's the use?
> >
> > - Show a friend what is a ray-tracer from his house.
>
> Can be done more quickly with POV-Ray and a test scene on a CD-ROM.
>
> Five minutes to install, one minute to demonstrate the render.

The idea was to not install PoV-Ray, for various reasons: the friend is
reluctant to install it, it doesn't has the room for this (14MB, consuming
43MB on a FAT16...), you may have not the CD-Rom handy, etc.

> > - Try before you buy, er, download... You can copy some code snippets
> > from the Internet and see what they look like.
>
> A snippet from one of the groups can be cut-and-pasted into POV-Ray
> (which every real user has running all the time anyway).  A major
> scene file, available for download, should have an accompanying .JPG
> or three.

"before you download" the PoV-Ray package, not the snippet. Again, a merre
8MB download, there are still some analog modems, you know.

> > - Continue your favorite activity even on the move, from any Internet
> > cafe...
>
> A laptop with POV-Ray does the trick.  Back in September I was
> modeling a birthday cake in the departure lounge at Philly IA.

I cannot afford a laptop...

> > Of course, you need a very robust server... :-)
>
> Wouldn't be enough use to justify the trouble.

Well, it seems somebody else though otherwise :-) The BadCheese server farm
is quite impressive...

Regards.

-- #=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=# --
Philippe Lhoste (Paris -- France)
Professional programmer and amateur artist
http://jove.prohosting.com/~philho/

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