POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.object-collection : 2008 Q1 News Server Time
28 Mar 2024 04:57:53 EDT (-0400)
  2008 Q1 News (Message 1 to 2 of 2)  
From: Chris B
Subject: 2008 Q1 News
Date: 11 Mar 2008 08:01:21
Message: <47d682a1@news.povray.org>
The Object Collection at http://lib.povray.org is growing slowly but surely. 
Although the number of contributions so far this year hasn't been huge, some 
contributions contain macros that generate whole classes of objects, so the 
number of distinct objects that can be generated is starting to get 
reasonably large. Don't let that stop you submitting standalone objects if 
you have them lying around. Something you put together for a scene that you 
may never use again could be just what someone else is looking for.

I see in Ben's recent posting the suggestion of a regular topic to help 
inspire contributions. Some of the comments on the Office Supplies topic at 
the start of the year suggested that it didn't get everyone's creative 
juices flowing. What topics would you personally find fun to work on? Do any 
of the following subjects fill you with an overwhelming desire to invest 
some time?

 o  Sports
 o  Planes, Trains and Automobiles
 o  Space Exploration
 o  Medieval Weaponry
 o  Something with lots of explosions in it

Recent Stuff
------------
Recent additions to the collection include a number of macros to apply 
uniform grids to things. The AxesandGridMacro from SharkD is designed to 
help you orient yourself when designing and laying out scenes. His 
SphereGridMacro and CylinderGridMacro are designed to apply visible grid 
textures to objects, similar to the uniform lines of latitude and longitude 
on a globe.

The FindSurface macro from Maggot addresses a pretty commonly experienced 
problem of uniformly distributing stuff around the surface of an object. 
Nekar Xenos has provided the Galaxy object for space exploration animations, 
which includes a 3d starfield and stars sky_sphere. Blue Herring has 
submitted the ZArrays macros to manipulate arrays and the ZShapes objects 
and macros that generate a series of mathematical shapes.

The RoadSigns contribution contains about 40 british traffic and 
international hazard symbols defined as prism objects (adapted from public 
domain SVG files) that can be used with 5 different styles of road signs. It 
also illustrates how to convert further SVG files for use with POV-Ray. The 
Barcode macro generates EAN barcodes and the Labeller macro generates 
paper/plastic labels with 12 existing designs and instructions on how to add 
your own.

Usability
--------
Discussions have started about how the web site can be improved and a few 
ideas have already been posted including:
 a)   a 'tag cloud' to display a bunch of hyperlinked keywords used to index 
submissions,
 b)   a 'what's new' list
 c)   an expanded list of categories, maybe with the number of items in each
 d)   a link to 'browse all entries' - maybe all at once?

Please feel free to discuss any ideas you have for improvements on this 
forum, both for the search/download screens and for the submission screens.

Regards,
Chris B.


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From: Cousin Ricky
Subject: Re: 2008 Q1 News
Date: 14 Jul 2008 08:25:00
Message: <web.487b44b2db9019be85de7b680@news.povray.org>
"Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote:
> Nekar Xenos has provided the Galaxy object for space exploration animations,
> which includes a 3d starfield and stars sky_sphere.

I cannot get the feedback form to work, but I found an issue with Galaxy that I
think is important.  The module is rated as "completely compliant," but I see
nothing compliant about it.


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