I have spent far too much time on this! but I thought others might find it
useful.

I find getting the right colour for an object by changing RGB values is
non-intuitive and slow. There are declared colours available in various include
files but, unless the colour you want is included and you know its name, you are
back to an anonymous RGB value. To over come this I have written a macro that
allows you to name a starting colour something like what you want it and then
tweek it to make it a slightly different shade.

A fuller description can be found here:
http://www.john-greenwood.co.uk/PovRay/TweekColours/

The macro include file is:
http://www.john-greenwood.co.uk/PovRay/Scripts/Tweek_Colours.inc

and a programme for displaying an array of slightly different shades of a
starting colour:
http://www.john-greenwood.co.uk/PovRay/Scripts/Find_Tweek_Colour.pov

I think this evolutionary process could be made much more elegant if the
selecting of the best colour could be done by pointing and clicking. I guess
that a "script" of some sort would be needed which would be a trivial task for
someone who knows how. I do not have the time nor the motivation to learn how to
do it myself.

I suppose it would be an .ini file that:

1 runs the .pov programme
2 inputs the coordinates where the user clicks on the display window,
3 runs the .pov programme again passing these coordinates to it.

and repeat.

I think this would be a useful general purpose tool.

John Greenwood

Post a reply to this message

Thank you indeed. I like this very much. One way or another, I am always 
looking for different shades of colours, using one or another facility. 
I shall certainly use yours.


-- 
Thomas

Post a reply to this message

"John Greenwood" <nomail@nomail> wrote:

> I think this evolutionary process could be made much more elegant if the
> selecting of the best colour could be done by pointing and clicking. I guess
> that a "script" of some sort would be needed which would be a trivial task for
> someone who knows how. I do not have the time nor the motivation to learn how to
> do it myself.

Indeed.  Although the official POV-Ray sticks to its roots as a way to raytrace
sometimes almost inconceivable images, it always seems to beckon for truly
backside-kickin' bells and whistles like that.

I'm sure there are a lot of allied utilities, macros, includes, etc. that are
(or were) available, but sometimes keeping track of what (and where) they all
are, what they do, how to use them, and even remembering that they're there to
use at all - can be a daunting task.

I'm sure there might be a way to integrate POV-Ray into a suite of various
softwares, where a freshly rendered image file can be used as input for
something like what you're talking about, and cross-talking with things like
Moray, and custom-written utilities like EPSpline, PointWriter, etc.

There's certainly a lot room for people with talent, skill, and motivation to
make some amazing software to enhance the design and creation of raytraced
images using POV-Ray.

Thanks for your contribution - it looks like a great tool to start looking at
variations in color.  Lord knows there's been some long, passionate, and
fascinating discussions about that topic even up to very recently.  I always
walk away learning something.

Again, great job!  :)


> John Greenwood

Post a reply to this message

> Thanks for your contribution - it looks like a great tool to start looking at
> variations in color.  Lord knows there's been some long, passionate, and
> fascinating discussions about that topic even up to very recently.  I always
> walk away learning something.
>
> Again, great job!  :)

Thanks
John Greenwood

Post a reply to this message

Something I am wondering about: how does this relate to srgb colours?

-- 
Thomas

Post a reply to this message

"John Greenwood" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> > Thanks for your contribution - it looks like a great tool to start looking at
> > variations in color.  Lord knows there's been some long, passionate, and
> > fascinating discussions about that topic even up to very recently.  I always
> > walk away learning something.
> >
> > Again, great job!  :)
>
> Thanks
> John Greenwood

I have updated this tool, removing some inconsistencies and put in a procedure
for transforming from rgb to HCL and back. It uses vector rotation and seems to
work better in this instance than the macros in color.inc

Its all at http://www.john-greenwood.co.uk/PovRay/TweekColours/

Post a reply to this message