Hello,

I am wondering something about the heightfield in POV-Ray 3.5. Is there a 
way to use a height field as a displacement map? That would require the 
height field to wrap an object using the object's UV coordinates just like 
an image map.

thanks for any info on this,

FlyerX

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> I am wondering something about the heightfield in POV-Ray 3.5. Is there a
> way to use a height field as a displacement map? That would require the
> height field to wrap an object using the object's UV coordinates just like
> an image map.

I suppose you mean *real* surface displacement - they're easier to fake. But
with an isosurface you can apply a displacement map to any shape. The tricky
thing will be UV mapping. Isosurfaces don't have UV coordinates. The only
other approch I can think of, is to tesselate an object (the tesselation
patch will soon be released). After this you have a grid of points that
follows the original objects shape.. And then it's easy to wrap a
heightfield around those points - with UV mapping included.

So for now, it's not easily going to work.. Unless UV are not so important
to you, then isosurfaces is the answer.

Regards,
Hugo

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FlyerX wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I am wondering something about the heightfield in POV-Ray 3.5. Is there a
> way to use a height field as a displacement map? That would require the
> height field to wrap an object using the object's UV coordinates just like
> an image map.

Sounds strange and does not make much sense to me, but you are probably
looking for something like the HF macros in POV-Ray 3.5.

See file 'shapes.inc'.

Christoph

-- 
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Last updated 26 Apr. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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> Sounds strange and does not make much sense to me, but you are probably
> looking for something like the HF macros in POV-Ray 3.5.

Well, it does not sound so strange to me. Surface displacement with UV
coordinates, could easily spice up any shape, most useful with image_maps of
course.. Lets take an example: A brick wall.. Make the wall round / any
shape you want, and apply a bump-map only this time it's real bumps..

But often, it's probably meant as a faster way to model, than .. for example
a macro to place each brick.. Though there are some more advanced bump
textures that would be real hard to "macro-nize"..

I think.. ;o)
Hugo

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