Like a lot of you, I play with POV, and I am awed by the images it can
generate. Also like a lot of you, I keep getting ideas for "what if it
could...?' or "I wish they would fix...". But reading the POV source code
is, to me, a rather daunting task (to put it mildly).

I have read quite thoroughly the docs on the POV scene description language,
and I am rather expert at that. Now I want to move on to the next
step--modifying POV to do some new things. But the spaghetti tangle of code
is extremely hard for me to follow--it's very hard to know just where to
begin, to make patches to POV. Not to mention that the commenting tends to
be rather on the sparse side.

So what I'm asking is, is there any documentation available on the POV
source code? Like a tutorial, that explains the logic of each section; what
it's doing and why? Or, more to the point, documentation that can help me to
understand how to modify the source in a way that won't crash POV? Things
like how to insert a new type of object especially would be appreciated, and
how to modify the scene description grammer?

I've seen lots of patches--so there's got to be people out there who know
how to make modes--I'd love to learn! :)

Thanks to all in advance
--Boumboum

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In article <36419414.0@news.povray.org> , "Whatever" <bou### [at] nospamhotmailcom>
wrote:
>Like a lot of you, I play with POV, and I am awed by the images it can
>generate. Also like a lot of you, I keep getting ideas for "what if it
>could...?' or "I wish they would fix...". But reading the POV source code
>is, to me, a rather daunting task (to put it mildly).

Yes, it has not many comments, but as stated in the docs there is no more info
available and you are on your own...

>I have read quite thoroughly the docs on the POV scene description language,
>and I am rather expert at that. Now I want to move on to the next
>step--modifying POV to do some new things. But the spaghetti tangle of code
>is extremely hard for me to follow--it's very hard to know just where to
>begin, to make patches to POV. Not to mention that the commenting tends to
>be rather on the sparse side.

...as a tip, you might try to understand the parser first. It is the most difficult
to undertsnad part, I think, and knowing (not in detail) how it works will give you
lots of hints how the interenal structures are related. Having a good IDE (or
external utility) with function browser will help, too. Simply start in the main
function and look where it calls the tracing code. You will discover, that the
objects all have some common functions that are grouped in a structure Method_Struct
that looks much like a class (of course it isn't...). You find it in frame.h. I hope
that will get you started.


    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: Tho### [at] csicom

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"Whatever" <bou### [at] nospamhotmailcom> wrote:

>what I'm asking is, is there any documentation available on the POV
>source code? Like a tutorial, that explains the logic of each section; what

if you find it, please send us a copy, too ;)

-- POV-Team

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povray.org admin team wrote:

> "Whatever" <bou### [at] nospamhotmailcom> wrote:
>
> >what I'm asking is, is there any documentation available on the POV
> >source code? Like a tutorial, that explains the logic of each section; what
>
> if you find it, please send us a copy, too ;)
>
> -- POV-Team

  Now that's funny.

Ken Tyler

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povray.org admin team wrote in message <36431a0d.1973688@news.povray.org>...
>"Whatever" <bou### [at] nospamhotmailcom> wrote:
>
>>what I'm asking is, is there any documentation available on the POV
>>source code? Like a tutorial, that explains the logic of each section;
what
>
>if you find it, please send us a copy, too ;)
>
>-- POV-Team

Last I saw, it was in a warehouse in Washington, D.C. next to that Ark of
the Covenant thingy.

Tom

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I heard it was buried in Grant's tomb.

Heh heh.

-Mike

Tom Galvin wrote:

> Last I saw, it was in a warehouse in Washington, D.C. next to that Ark of
> the Covenant thingy.
>
>

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Oooh, what a tempting project... Nah, I'm too busy...  

I've been through just about every source file, having once converted
the whole thing to C++, adding dispersion, fixing bugs, etc....


Very tempting....

-- 

Daren Scot Wilson
Member, ACM
dar### [at] pipelinecom
www.newcolor.com
--
"A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for"
                     -- William Shedd

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