POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.general : Smalltalk raytracer Server Time
4 Nov 2024 21:26:11 EST (-0500)
  Smalltalk raytracer (Message 1 to 8 of 8)  
From: David Buck
Subject: Smalltalk raytracer
Date: 11 Oct 2003 21:23:45
Message: <3f88ad21$1@news.povray.org>
If anyone is interested in learning how ray tracing works or wants an 
excuse to learn Smalltalk, I've written a (very) simplistic ray tracer 
in Smalltalk and made the code freely available.  Don't expect anything 
dramatic - this version isn't even as powerful as DKBTrace was.  My 
purpose in writing it was to see how ray tracing would look in a pure 
object oriented language, to help teach some techniques in Smalltalk, 
and to give me something fun to write rather than business applications.

You can see a better description of it on my blog:

http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/buck/blogView?showComments=true&entry=3243310836

To try it out, you'll need to get VisualWorks Smalltalk Non-commercial 
(free for non-commercial use).

http://www.cincom.com/scripts/smalltalk.dll/downloads/index.ssp

If you have any questions about it, feel free to e-mail me at 
dav### [at] simberoncom.

Have fun - that's what it's all about.

David Buck
Simberon Inc.
www.simberon.com


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From: Roberto A 
Subject: Re: Smalltalk raytracer
Date: 13 Oct 2003 09:06:23
Message: <3f8aa34f@news.povray.org>
Very cool. Any intention to do a Squeak/GNU Smalltalk port? I love
Smalltalk, I'm glad to see someone else using it here. Perhaps I would do
the Squeak/GNU Smalltalk port myself, if you don't have the intention to.

BTW, you're the mind behind Elastolab too? Great work!

Cheers!


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From: Tom Galvin
Subject: Re: Smalltalk raytracer
Date: 13 Oct 2003 11:50:44
Message: <Xns94137848CEC47tomatimporg@204.213.191.226>
"Roberto A." <wol### [at] hot-mailcom> wrote in 
news:3f8aa34f@news.povray.org:

> 
> BTW, you're the mind behind Elastolab too? Great work!
> 
> 
> 

He is also the author of DKBTrace which is what POV-Ray was based on.

http://www.povray.org/documentation/view/7/

-- 
Tom
_________________________________
The Internet Movie Project
http://www.imp.org/


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From: Roberto A 
Subject: Re: Smalltalk raytracer
Date: 14 Oct 2003 12:53:08
Message: <3f8c29f4@news.povray.org>
> He is also the author of DKBTrace which is what POV-Ray was based on.
>
> http://www.povray.org/documentation/view/7/

Yeah, I've noticed. Great stuff. In fact, I didn't forget - I was simply
focused on the Smalltalk side of things. :-)


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From: David Buck
Subject: Re: Smalltalk raytracer
Date: 15 Oct 2003 11:40:03
Message: <3f8d6a53$1@news.povray.org>
Actually, Avi Bryant did a squeak port.  It's available on SqueakMap 
under Ray Tracing.

Yes, I'm the one responsible for ElastoLab and DKBTrace.  If you're 
interested in the ElastoLab physics code, it's also available on 
SqueakMap under Simulated Physics IIRC.  Both packages are open source 
under the MIT license. (i.e., you can use it but don't sue me if it 
doesn't work).

Enjoy

David Buck
Simberon Inc.
www.simberon.com

Roberto A. wrote:
> Very cool. Any intention to do a Squeak/GNU Smalltalk port? I love
> Smalltalk, I'm glad to see someone else using it here. Perhaps I would do
> the Squeak/GNU Smalltalk port myself, if you don't have the intention to.
> 
> BTW, you're the mind behind Elastolab too? Great work!
> 
> Cheers!
> 
>


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From: David Buck
Subject: Re: Smalltalk raytracer
Date: 15 Oct 2003 11:47:29
Message: <3f8d6c11@news.povray.org>
Roberto A. wrote:

>>He is also the author of DKBTrace which is what POV-Ray was based on.
>>
>>http://www.povray.org/documentation/view/7/
> 
> 
> Yeah, I've noticed. Great stuff. In fact, I didn't forget - I was simply
> focused on the Smalltalk side of things. :-)

I really didn't intend to do much more with it than demonstrate a proof 
of concept.  It doesn't even have transformations on the textures 
although this could be easily added.

This code was originally written to be included in a book which I was 
planning called "Software Adventures in Smalltalk" or something to that 
effect. The idea is that software should be fun and I wanted to teach it 
in a fun way.  Raytracing was always fun for me and coming up with a 
Smalltalk version was a natural choice.  I had lots of other neat ideas 
for the book as well.

After talking to a publisher friend of mine, though, he felt that 
project books like that never sell well and if I really wanted to write 
a book I should write an Intro to Smalltalk for Programmers kind of 
book.  Since there are several books like this coming out soon, I didn't 
feel it was worthwhile.

In any event, it doesn't stop people from having fun with the software.

David Buck
Simberon Inc.
www.simberon.com


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From: Roberto A 
Subject: Re: Smalltalk raytracer
Date: 16 Oct 2003 10:18:55
Message: <3f8ea8cf@news.povray.org>
I have to say that, IMHO, there's no language more fun to work with than
Smalltalk. I have a blast every time I play with it.

Your work, of course, enhances that experience. Cheers!

Roberto


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From: Christopher James Huff
Subject: Re: Smalltalk raytracer
Date: 18 Oct 2003 22:38:41
Message: <cjameshuff-69CA0C.22363018102003@netplex.aussie.org>
In article <3f88ad21$1@news.povray.org>, David Buck <dav### [at] simbeoncom> 
wrote:

> If anyone is interested in learning how ray tracing works or wants an 
> excuse to learn Smalltalk, I've written a (very) simplistic ray tracer 
> in Smalltalk and made the code freely available.  Don't expect anything 
> dramatic - this version isn't even as powerful as DKBTrace was.  My 
> purpose in writing it was to see how ray tracing would look in a pure 
> object oriented language, to help teach some techniques in Smalltalk, 
> and to give me something fun to write rather than business applications.

Have you ever done anything in Objective C? It is basically C with a 
Smalltalk-like object system layered over it. And Objective-C++ is the 
same system layered over C++...you could use C++ classes for matrices 
and vectors, and do the rest of the program as you would in a more OO 
manner. There's a raytracing toolkit of some sort written in it:
http://www.artoolkit.org/

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
http://tag.povray.org/


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