POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.programming : 16 bit Povray Server Time
3 Jul 2024 05:27:23 EDT (-0400)
  16 bit Povray (Message 1 to 7 of 7)  
From: Shay
Subject: 16 bit Povray
Date: 1 May 2003 13:49:39
Message: <3eb15e33@news.povray.org>
Would it be possible/easy to compile a version of Povray which uses 16
bit floats?

 -Shay


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From: Thorsten Froehlich
Subject: Re: 16 bit Povray
Date: 1 May 2003 14:22:18
Message: <3eb165da$1@news.povray.org>
In article <3eb15e33@news.povray.org> , "Shay" <sah### [at] simcopartscom> wrote:

> Would it be possible/easy to compile a version of Povray which uses 16
> bit floats?

There is no 16 bit float format supported by any existing hardware, so what
would it be useful for? Are you even sure you are talking about floats and
not integers?

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org


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From: Christopher James Huff
Subject: Re: 16 bit Povray
Date: 1 May 2003 14:29:32
Message: <cjameshuff-2E5BB7.14293001052003@netplex.aussie.org>
In article <3eb15e33@news.povray.org>, "Shay" <sah### [at] simcopartscom> 
wrote:

> Would it be possible/easy to compile a version of Povray which uses 16
> bit floats?

I don't think you quite know what you're asking. POV-Ray uses double 
precision floats for a reason, 16 bits would not have anywhere close to 
the precision needed. It might be useful for storing large dynamic range 
images on disk, but would be slower for calculations than the native 
floating point types. There are a few places where 16-bit fixed point 
arithmetic might be useful (and probably several places where fixed 
point arithmetic of some kind is actually used), but it isn't something 
you would change all of POV-Ray to use.

Why would you want a version that used 16 bit floats?

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
http://tag.povray.org/


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From: Shay
Subject: Re: 16 bit Povray
Date: 1 May 2003 17:05:24
Message: <3eb18c14@news.povray.org>
"Thorsten Froehlich" <tho### [at] trfde> wrote in message
news:3eb165da$1@news.povray.org...
|
| There is no 16 bit float format supported by any existing
| hardware, so what would it be useful for? Are you even sure
| you are talking about floats and not integers?
|

I see. I was not aware of this. Thank you.

 -Shay


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From: Ben Chambers
Subject: Re: 16 bit Povray
Date: 4 May 2003 17:38:24
Message: <3eb58850@news.povray.org>
"Thorsten Froehlich" <tho### [at] trfde> wrote in message
news:3eb165da$1@news.povray.org...
> In article <3eb15e33@news.povray.org> , "Shay" <sah### [at] simcopartscom> wrote:
>
> > Would it be possible/easy to compile a version of Povray which uses 16
> > bit floats?
>
> There is no 16 bit float format supported by any existing hardware,

Sure, they're called GPU's :)  At CGShaders.org, there's even a raytraced
pixel shader, though you have to compile it separately for each scene.

...Chambers


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From: Th Boudet
Subject: Re: 16 bit Povray
Date: 25 Jul 2003 04:09:03
Message: <3f20e59f@news.povray.org>
Christopher James Huff wrote:
> 
>>Would it be possible/easy to compile a version of Povray which uses 16
>>bit floats?
> 
> 
> Why would you want a version that used 16 bit floats?
> 
     Embedded Povray ?


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From: Christopher James Huff
Subject: Re: 16 bit Povray
Date: 25 Jul 2003 19:55:49
Message: <cjameshuff-39FE10.18555725072003@netplex.aussie.org>
In article <3f20e59f@news.povray.org>, Th Boudet <th.### [at] freefr> 
wrote:

> Christopher James Huff wrote:
> > Why would you want a version that used 16 bit floats?
>      Embedded Povray ?

And why would you want that?

Anyway, it just won't work. You could write a simple custom raytracer if 
you pay very careful attention to precision, but POV has enough 
precision problems already.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
http://tag.povray.org/


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