Time to blow the dust from those old pixels and wake up some of those
idle electrons....the next POVRay competition is now open, see
   http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/povss/

Thanks to all the suggestions since the last fractal contest. Over all
there were about 10 distinct ideas for new competitions. In choosing a
new theme I rated the choices on a new "principles" (no particular order)
1. Maximise the appeal to as wide as possible group within the POVRay community.
2. Maximise the appeal of the results to the wider non-POVRay audience.
3. Maximise the opportunity to show off POVRay and raytracing in general. 
4. Avoid options that would significantly disadvantage anyone without
   a high end computer.
5. Avoid choices that, for various reasons, would be hard to manage as a 
   competition.
Last but not least, I need to have some personal interest/motivation. :-)

My preferred options for future competitions boiled down to the following
1. Limited geometry, eg: use no more than 10 primitives from sphere, box, ....
2. Scene based on a single versatile primitive.
3. Render showing of optics.....details to be decided.

So, I've chosen (2) this time around because it interests me and the
supershape is somewhat topical with Genicap offering plugs for Illustrator
   http://www.genicap.com/tech_super.html
(2d only) and further tools in the pipeline for 3D packages.
   http://www.genicap.com/gallery/3d_illustration.html

Happy rendering.
-- 
Paul Bourke
pdb_NOSPAMswin.edu.au

Post a reply to this message

Paul Bourke wrote:
> Time to blow the dust from those old pixels and wake up some of those
> idle electrons....the next POVRay competition is now open, see
>    http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/povss/
> 
> Thanks to all the suggestions since the last fractal contest. Over all
> there were about 10 distinct ideas for new competitions. In choosing a
> new theme I rated the choices on a new "principles" (no particular order)
> 1. Maximise the appeal to as wide as possible group within the POVRay community.
> 2. Maximise the appeal of the results to the wider non-POVRay audience.
> 3. Maximise the opportunity to show off POVRay and raytracing in general. 
> 4. Avoid options that would significantly disadvantage anyone without
>    a high end computer.
> 5. Avoid choices that, for various reasons, would be hard to manage as a 
>    competition.
> Last but not least, I need to have some personal interest/motivation. :-)
> 
> My preferred options for future competitions boiled down to the following
> 1. Limited geometry, eg: use no more than 10 primitives from sphere, box, ....
> 2. Scene based on a single versatile primitive.
> 3. Render showing of optics.....details to be decided.
> 
> So, I've chosen (2) this time around because it interests me and the
> supershape is somewhat topical with Genicap offering plugs for Illustrator
>    http://www.genicap.com/tech_super.html
> (2d only) and further tools in the pipeline for 3D packages.
>    http://www.genicap.com/gallery/3d_illustration.html
> 
> Happy rendering.

which povray version are we using please ?

param.inc don't seem to exist on my box, povray-3.5c, debian/libranet 
somewhere near unstable

stephen

Post a reply to this message

stephen parkinson wrote:
> Paul Bourke wrote:
> 
>> Time to blow the dust from those old pixels and wake up some of those
>> idle electrons....the next POVRay competition is now open, see
>>    http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/povss/
>>
>> Thanks to all the suggestions since the last fractal contest. Over all
>> there were about 10 distinct ideas for new competitions. In choosing a
>> new theme I rated the choices on a new "principles" (no particular order)
>> 1. Maximise the appeal to as wide as possible group within the POVRay 
>> community.
>> 2. Maximise the appeal of the results to the wider non-POVRay audience.
>> 3. Maximise the opportunity to show off POVRay and raytracing in 
>> general. 4. Avoid options that would significantly disadvantage anyone 
>> without
>>    a high end computer.
>> 5. Avoid choices that, for various reasons, would be hard to manage as 
>> a    competition.
>> Last but not least, I need to have some personal interest/motivation. :-)
>>
>> My preferred options for future competitions boiled down to the following
>> 1. Limited geometry, eg: use no more than 10 primitives from sphere, 
>> box, ....
>> 2. Scene based on a single versatile primitive.
>> 3. Render showing of optics.....details to be decided.
>>
>> So, I've chosen (2) this time around because it interests me and the
>> supershape is somewhat topical with Genicap offering plugs for 
>> Illustrator
>>    http://www.genicap.com/tech_super.html
>> (2d only) and further tools in the pipeline for 3D packages.
>>    http://www.genicap.com/gallery/3d_illustration.html
>>
>> Happy rendering.
> 
> 
> which povray version are we using please ?
> 
> param.inc don't seem to exist on my box, povray-3.5c, debian/libranet 
> somewhere near unstable
> 
> stephen

ignore me, NEXT time reading the flaming instructions or somesuch phrase

stephen

currently battling include paths in pov-mode.el and byte-compiling :-)

Post a reply to this message

stephen parkinson wrote:
> stephen parkinson wrote:
> 
>> Paul Bourke wrote:
>>
>>> Time to blow the dust from those old pixels and wake up some of those
>>> idle electrons....the next POVRay competition is now open, see
>>>    http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/povss/
>>>
>>> Thanks to all the suggestions since the last fractal contest. Over all
>>> there were about 10 distinct ideas for new competitions. In choosing a
>>> new theme I rated the choices on a new "principles" (no particular 
>>> order)
>>> 1. Maximise the appeal to as wide as possible group within the POVRay 
>>> community.
>>> 2. Maximise the appeal of the results to the wider non-POVRay audience.
>>> 3. Maximise the opportunity to show off POVRay and raytracing in 
>>> general. 4. Avoid options that would significantly disadvantage 
>>> anyone without
>>>    a high end computer.
>>> 5. Avoid choices that, for various reasons, would be hard to manage 
>>> as a    competition.
>>> Last but not least, I need to have some personal interest/motivation. 
>>> :-)
>>>
>>> My preferred options for future competitions boiled down to the 
>>> following
>>> 1. Limited geometry, eg: use no more than 10 primitives from sphere, 
>>> box, ....
>>> 2. Scene based on a single versatile primitive.
>>> 3. Render showing of optics.....details to be decided.
>>>
>>> So, I've chosen (2) this time around because it interests me and the
>>> supershape is somewhat topical with Genicap offering plugs for 
>>> Illustrator
>>>    http://www.genicap.com/tech_super.html
>>> (2d only) and further tools in the pipeline for 3D packages.
>>>    http://www.genicap.com/gallery/3d_illustration.html
>>>
>>> Happy rendering.
>>
>>
>>
>> which povray version are we using please ?
>>
>> param.inc don't seem to exist on my box, povray-3.5c, debian/libranet 
>> somewhere near unstable
>>
>> stephen
> 
> 
> ignore me, NEXT time reading the flaming instructions or somesuch phrase
> 
> stephen
> 
> currently battling include paths in pov-mode.el and byte-compiling :-)

you don't happen to know how to add a user path to the include list in 
pov-mode ??

stephen

Post a reply to this message

The page seems to lack the definition of a supershape. It also seems
to lack limitations on what can be submitted. For all I can see I could
just submit a reflective sphere on a checkered plane because there are
no limitations on what the image should contain. Or I could try to compress
eg. a mesh of a human head into the 10000 bytes and submit that (clearly
that wouldn't be a supershape?).
  The last point is imho quite important: Someone could just make a mesh
of something which looks impossible to do as a mathematical formula, and
it really can be so. Since the voters don't see the source code when
voting they can't be sure if it's just a 'mesh2' block with tons of
data (eg. from poser or whatever) and they might give it a lot of votes
even though the entry has nothing to do with supershapes.

-- 
plane{-x+y,-1pigment{bozo color_map{[0rgb x][1rgb x+y]}turbulence 1}}
sphere{0,2pigment{rgbt 1}interior{media{emission 1density{spherical
density_map{[0rgb 0][.5rgb<1,.5>][1rgb 1]}turbulence.9}}}scale
<1,1,3>hollow}text{ttf"timrom""Warp".1,0translate<-1,-.1,2>}//  - Warp -

Post a reply to this message

In article <pdb_NOSPAM-372277.16361109052004@news.povray.org>,
 Paul Bourke <pdb### [at] swineduau> wrote:

> Time to blow the dust from those old pixels and wake up some of those
> idle electrons....the next POVRay competition is now open, see
>    http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/povss/

What's a supershape? The first thing I thought of was the superellipsoid 
primitive, but that's the only supershape supported directly by POV. 
There's also macros for a supertorus and what's called a supercone, 
though I think it actually belongs to a different class of objects. The 
pictures on that page seem to be of objects created with various polar 
or spherical equations. Is this just a competition with shapes based on 
spheres and circles? Is there a particular equation to use? How should 
these shapes be generated? I wouldn't restrict it to the parametric 
primitive...meshes? Isosurfaces? Arrangements of other primitives in 
these shapes?

This sounds like something I read a while ago about some guy who had 
patented a "superequation" that could produce a wide variety of shapes. 
It was really trivial, hugely overblown (described as some tremendous 
breakthrough, despite the fact that similar equations have been used for 
centuries), and tremendously stupid that the guy got a patent on it. 
(Why didn't he patent the sine wave while he was at it?)
This MathWorld article has some information on this shape:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Superellipse.html
Looks like this is the same guy, Johan Gielis...and the prize is his 
book. Why give this nut any more support?

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

Post a reply to this message

I love those great ideas that makes moving the "pov-fellowship"
Did you ever seen this site I made :

http://empirium.free.fr/defis/def.php

I think its according to your ideas ! ;-)

Post a reply to this message

> The page seems to lack the definition of a supershape.
> It also seems to lack limitations on what can be submitted. F

I have atempted to fix both of these concerns, thanks.

Post a reply to this message