Why is the bozo pattern called bozo? I have searched around, and the
only reference I've found to a bozo function is in the POV-Ray
documentation. Is it a function that is used just in POV-Ray, or is bozo
a common term for a specific kind of function?

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none <""martin\"@(none)"> wrote:
> Why is the bozo pattern called bozo? I have searched around, and the
> only reference I've found to a bozo function is in the POV-Ray
> documentation. Is it a function that is used just in POV-Ray, or is bozo
> a common term for a specific kind of function?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo_the_Clown

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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none <""martin\"@(none)"> wrote:
> Why is the bozo pattern called bozo? I have searched around, and the
> only reference I've found to a bozo function is in the POV-Ray
> documentation. Is it a function that is used just in POV-Ray, or is bozo
> a common term for a specific kind of function?

no idea. Maybe it's named so because it looks somehow silly.

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> none <""martin\"@(none)"> wrote:
> > Why is the bozo pattern called bozo? I have searched around, and the
> > only reference I've found to a bozo function is in the POV-Ray
> > documentation. Is it a function that is used just in POV-Ray, or is bozo
> > a common term for a specific kind of function?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo_the_Clown

Ah, really? We'd probably *never ever* have found that article without your help
;)

Now where's the connection?

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clipka <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> > none <""martin\"@(none)"> wrote:
> > > Why is the bozo pattern called bozo? I have searched around, and the
> > > only reference I've found to a bozo function is in the POV-Ray
> > > documentation. Is it a function that is used just in POV-Ray, or is bozo
> > > a common term for a specific kind of function?
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo_the_Clown

> Ah, really? We'd probably *never ever* have found that article without your help
> ;)

> Now where's the connection?

  Are you sure the pattern is not named after the clown?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   Are you sure the pattern is not named after the clown?

No, I'm definitely not sure the pattern isn't named after bozo the clown. But
are you sure it is? Do you have any substantial hints that it is so?

I pretty much expect the OP to have encountered Bozo The Clown already during
his erarlier research. After all, there's basically no way to google around
that figure.

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clipka wrote:

> I pretty much expect the OP to have encountered Bozo The Clown already during
> his erarlier research. After all, there's basically no way to google around
> that figure.

Heh, and yourdictionary.com harvested the POV-Ray
documentation for a usage examples of "bozo" ;)

"
Modifies a noun

  * pattern: This new pigment uses the bozo pattern to create some nice
             clouds.
"

http://www.yourdictionary.com/bozo

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"clipka" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.49ec4ea6b39f4461a1b9caf0@news.povray.org...
> Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>>   Are you sure the pattern is not named after the clown?
>
> No, I'm definitely not sure the pattern isn't named after bozo the clown. 
> But
> are you sure it is? Do you have any substantial hints that it is so?

I was imagining Bozo the Clown as having fuzzy hair in the shape of a 
horseshoe around his head, been a very long time since I had seen him so 
that was a glimpse back through time seeing the wiki article.

When using the pigment without any extras (no turbulence, scale, 
transformations) on a unit-sized sphere, half white and half orange, the 
appearance is what I expected to be like Bozo before seeing the picture of 
him. Adding a red nose helps visualize that. This is the view from a camera 
at -3*z:
http://0mniverse.com/povray/bozopatternclown.jpg

I guess David Buck must know the real answer, but I can't remember if it was 
in DKB-Trace prior to POV-Ray Trace. Sure seems like it might have been the 
clown-hair fluff look of it that got it this name, but everyone probably 
mixed that up (like me) thinking it was about the hair and not some other 
attribute (if any, such as "silly" as was already mentioned).

Bob

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Bob escreveu:
> I guess David Buck must know the real answer, but I can't remember if it 
> was in DKB-Trace prior to POV-Ray Trace. Sure seems like it might have 
> been the clown-hair fluff look of it that got it this name, but everyone 
> probably mixed that up (like me) thinking it was about the hair and not 
> some other attribute (if any, such as "silly" as was already mentioned).

Must be an internal joke.  But somehow, I always felt it to be linked to 
a blue sky with white clouds.  Perhaps someone misspelled clown? :P

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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Bob wrote:
> I guess David Buck must know the real answer, but I can't remember if it 
> was in DKB-Trace prior to POV-Ray Trace. Sure seems like it might have 
> been the clown-hair fluff look of it that got it this name, but everyone 
> probably mixed that up (like me) thinking it was about the hair and not 
> some other attribute (if any, such as "silly" as was already mentioned).
> 
> Bob

It's lucky that I still monitor this group :-)

Bozo was indeed in DKBTrace.  In fact, it was one of the first 
procedural textures to be implemented in DKBTrace.  I wasn't, however, 
responsible for the name.  It came from a technical paper presented at 
SIGGRAPH '84 by Ken Perlin called "An Image Synthesizer".  He showed a 
torus with a bozo texture on it.

That paper served as a huge inspiration for me to create the original 
textures in DKBTrace and later POVRay.

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=325247
http://luthuli.cs.uiuc.edu/~daf/courses/ComputerGraphics/Week8/Shading.pdf

David Buck

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