What Pov-Ray is lacking is a good all round Front-End GUI.
A package capable of doing complex modelling (primitives, blobs, NURBS
e.t.c.)
With powerful animation tools. (keyframing, inverse kinematics, skeletal
animation, Real-time OpenGL/wireframe preview e.t.c.)
Intuitive interface (stealing ideas of most of the best modellers ie
Rhino3D)
Cross platform
The ability to edit POV code in-program (a bit like a WYSIWYG webpage
editor with html editing functions - I gather this would interest those
who like coding by hand because it gives them greater control over the
scene)
All in a nice free GPLed program

But these are just some thoughts. Perhaps one day I might start on a
project like this, but at the moment I have neither the expertise or the
time for it *sigh*
I would imagine that if there was a program like this (is there?) it
would make Pov-Ray alot more popular, even more than it is now!

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Anthony May wrote:
> 
> What Pov-Ray is lacking is a good all round Front-End GUI.
> A package capable of doing complex modelling (primitives, blobs, NURBS
> e.t.c.)
> With powerful animation tools. (keyframing, inverse kinematics, skeletal
> animation, Real-time OpenGL/wireframe preview e.t.c.)
> Intuitive interface (stealing ideas of most of the best modellers ie
> Rhino3D)
> Cross platform
> The ability to edit POV code in-program (a bit like a WYSIWYG webpage
> editor with html editing functions - I gather this would interest those
> who like coding by hand because it gives them greater control over the
> scene)
> All in a nice free GPLed program
> 
> But these are just some thoughts. Perhaps one day I might start on a
> project like this, but at the moment I have neither the expertise or the
> time for it *sigh*
> I would imagine that if there was a program like this (is there?) it
> would make Pov-Ray alot more popular, even more than it is now!

There is one project in the works called PRM (POV-Ray Modeller) that
has many lofty goals of adding the features that you detailed. Like
any group project it is bogged down by people with real lives and
they are doing it as a hobby. I really haven't heard in a long time
how much progress they are making if any.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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Of course a high-quality modeller like the one in 3D-Studio and other
professional programs would be very nice. However, there are many problems
about this.
  Povray is made by volunteers who receive no money for their work (while
the makers of 3D-Studio and other similar programs surely earn LOTS of
money for each line of code they write). This means that all the efforts are
put in the core rendering engine itself instead of spending lots of resources
(probably even more than in povray itself) in a modeller. On the other hand,
making a portable modeller is not an easy task, and portability has always
been a principle in povray.
  Of course there is Moray, which is quite good. But AFAIK there's only one
person doing it he doesn't earn very much (well, I really don't know how
much money he earns from the registrations, but I suppose that it isn't even
1/1000 of the money the professionals earn making 3D-Studio). The plugin
system helps a lot, but still there is too few people working on it.
  Ken mentioned another project, which may or may not result in a good
modeller for povray. However, it will invariably have the same problems.
The future will show.

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

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Hi Ken and all,

we are really in alot of real life work. And of course we are in lack of
coders, or to be more precisely, code designers.
Design burned down essentially to Matthias Baas and myself, though we
had a good discussion about requirements.
The down point at the time is, that Matthias and I don't agree on
everything, and DO have real lifes.

Interested folks, please watch the mailing list archive and some of our
prelim docs at
http://www.lx040-001.gsbme.unsw.edu.au/~shaunc/linux-lounge/

See ya

Axel

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