I just had an idea for an improvement to the POV-Ray scene language:

Get rid of all the object keywords except blob, julia_fractal, and poly.

This would not prevent the use of the other types of shapes, as all of the
other shapes can be created from these basic types using only the
'intersection', 'union', and 'inverse' keywords.

Doing this has many advantages:

First, it will make learning the language much easier.  By reducing the
number of object type keywords from 23 to 4, plus the CSG keywords
intersection and union.  All the other objects can be constructed from these
basic objects.

Second, it will reduce the time spent by the computer parsing the scene
files.  With the reduced number of keywords, the POV-Ray parser will have a
smaller list of words to check against, resulting in faster parsing and
quicker detection of syntax errors.

Third, this would make writing utilities to convert to or, primarily, from
the POV-Ray format significantly easier, as the programmer would have fewer
object types to contend with.

With all the benefits that implementing this proposal would provide, I
strongly urge the POV-Team to pursue this course of action.

Mark

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 01:59:46 -0400, "Mark Wagner"
<mar### [at] gtenet> wrote:

>I just had an idea for an improvement to the POV-Ray scene language:
>
>Get rid of all the object keywords except blob, julia_fractal, and poly.
>
>This would not prevent the use of the other types of shapes, as all of the
>other shapes can be created from these basic types using only the
>'intersection', 'union', and 'inverse' keywords.

What about planes, triangles, and meshes? (Not to be confused with a
comedy staring Steve Martin and John Candy.) Can these really be
created with only the object types you mention?

Incidently, for a "modest" proposal, this sounds pretty radical to me.

Post a reply to this message

I'm pretty sure it was a joke - I was going to reply, but folks like Lance
Birch own all the rights to the responses I wanted to use.

Post a reply to this message

In article <3779c698@news.povray.org> , "Edward C." 
<edw### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:

> I'm pretty sure it was a joke - I was going to reply, but folks like Lance
> Birch own all the rights to the responses I wanted to use.

I agree, this most be a joke.


    Thorsten

Post a reply to this message

Um, you're an escapee from a mental institution???

You MUST be joking right?  Come on, seriously :)  You must be... are you?

haha, yeah...



--
Lance.

(if that's modest I'd hate to see what you'd call revolutionary)

---
For the latest 3D Studio MAX plug-ins, images and much more, go to:
The Zone - http://come.to/the.zone
For a totally different experience, visit my Chroma Key Website:
Colorblind - http://listen.to/colorblind

Post a reply to this message

In povray.general Mark Wagner <mar### [at] gtenet> wrote:
: Second, it will reduce the time spent by the computer parsing the scene
: files.

  But it certainly will increase drastically the time spent tracing the
scene.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

Post a reply to this message

And I thought everyone realised CSGs were slow ;-)

--
Lance.


---
For the latest 3D Studio MAX plug-ins, images and much more, go to:
The Zone - http://come.to/the.zone
For a totally different experience, visit my Chroma Key Website:
Colorblind - http://listen.to/colorblind
Nieminen Mika wrote in message <3779dc83@news.povray.org>...
>In povray.general Mark Wagner <mar### [at] gtenet> wrote:
>: Second, it will reduce the time spent by the computer parsing the scene
>: files.
>
>  But it certainly will increase drastically the time spent tracing the
>scene.
>
>--
>main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
>):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

Post a reply to this message

Perhaps this is a modest proposal after the model of Swift.  That, or
the author needs to cut back on the math classes a little bit.  If that
isn't possible, an algorithms class may be in order.  The elegant
solution is not necessarily the most efficient.

-- 
Mark Gordon
mtg### [at] povrayorg

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 07:01:26 GMT, Glen Berry wrote:
>On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 01:59:46 -0400, "Mark Wagner"
><mar### [at] gtenet> wrote:
>
>>I just had an idea for an improvement to the POV-Ray scene language:
>>
>>Get rid of all the object keywords except blob, julia_fractal, and poly.
>>
>>This would not prevent the use of the other types of shapes, as all of the
>>other shapes can be created from these basic types using only the
>>'intersection', 'union', and 'inverse' keywords.
>
>What about planes, triangles, and meshes? (Not to be confused with a
>comedy staring Steve Martin and John Candy.) Can these really be
>created with only the object types you mention?

A plane is a simple poly. A triangle is (sort of) an intersection of planes, 
though to get it right I think you'd still need clipped_by.  A mesh is just a 
union of a bunch of triangles.  But I'd like to see the code that replaces a 
text object (it is possible, though insanely ugly, and it only requires polys 
of degree 3 and lower.)

Oh, and you don't need inverse for anything but blobs or julias, either,  as 
flipping the sign of the poly accomplishes the same thing.

And while we're at it, let's get rid of area_light, since you can fake it with 
a grid of point light sources.  And we can get rid of either the matrix keyword 
or the rotate, translate, and scale keywords.  And we don't need color_map 
because you can do that with a pigment_map, but we don't need pigment_map 
because you can do THAT with a texture_map.  We don't need the checker, bricks, 
or hexagons patterns, because they can be synthesized with various gradients 
and the repeat warp.  I believe the repeat warp itself can be synthesized with 
various gradients, so long as you only use rational offsets (and all numbers 
are rational in a computer, so...)  We don't need marble, because it's just a 
texture_map of a couple of gradients.

I'm sure there's more stuff we can eliminate in our quest for syntactic purity
and orthogonality.  I mean, what's the point in doing this if you're only going 
to go halfway?  I say Mark's idea would only be good for slackers.

Oh, and pretend there's a HUGE smiley face at the end of this post, just as 
y'all should have at the end of Mark's post.

Post a reply to this message

Mark Wagner wrote:
> 
> I just had an idea for an improvement to the POV-Ray scene language:
> 
> Get rid of all the object keywords except blob, julia_fractal, and poly.

Why complicate things with such slow primitives. Each of your chosen objects
are difficult to compute and are slow to render. I propose instead reverting
to a simple phong shaded triangle rendering system. This would make realtime
raytracing possible and the are no shapes that cannot be represented with
triangles.

-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

Post a reply to this message