I am somewhat new to POV... or rather, just a casual user who keeps
losing what he knows because he just doesn't use it enough.  Anyway, can
anybody tell me an easy way to put text on an object?  I am in the
process of making some 55 gallon drums and I'd like to put a name on
them.

Thanks in advance,
Mick

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Hi Mick,

The easiest way (I found) is to create an intersection of the text and
the outline of the surface you want it on.

Example: How to put text on a sphere, nicely following the curve.

1 - Create a difference{} between two sphere objects, slightly offset
along the 'z' axis (e.g. 'translate z*-.1'). This gives you a thin slice
of a sphere, with the proper curve on the outside. Instead of offsetting
the spheres, you could also try scaling the inner sphere slightly
smaller. You will have to 'chop off' the back three quarters of the
remaining sphere yourself, though (create the difference between two
spheres and a plane to get this).

[ascii drawing]: The slice you get will look somewhat like this:

          _______ (from border of inner sphere)
          \_____/ (from border of outer sphere)

2 - Create an intersection{} between the slice you just created and the
original sphere you wanted to put it on. This gives you a slice of the
text which matches the curve of the slice from step 1. Make sure,
however, that you extrude the text enough (give it thickness) to fully
intersect with the slice. This might take some fiddling and positioning.

In short:

intersection {
    difference {
        surface_1
        surface_2, translate z*-0.1   // or the thickness you want
    }
    your_text_object   // make sure to extrude far enough (enough
thickness)
}

Et voila!

Let me know if you'd like an example .pov file.

Hope this helps,

Rob.

Mick Kohler wrote:
> 
> I am somewhat new to POV... or rather, just a casual user who keeps
> losing what he knows because he just doesn't use it enough.  Anyway, can
> anybody tell me an easy way to put text on an object?  I am in the
> process of making some 55 gallon drums and I'd like to put a name on
> them.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Mick

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OR, you can paste an image_map to the object. Image_maps don't work too
good on triangle objects (the triangles tend to make the image come out
like the "Hall of Mirrors" in Doom), but they work great on primitives and
such.

I think Moray comes with a fantastic example (the Pov-Ray coke can is what
I'm thinking of), or perhaps that was an example included with "Ray Tracing
Worlds with Pov-Ray." Either way, I'll put an example in the binary images
section for you. Be patient, I'm uploading a web page now, but it will be
tonight.

Paul Hinds
gri### [at] swbellnet

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I put the samples up in the binary scenes area for you. The zip has two
sources. One is a cylinder mapped by an image file, and the other is a box
differenced with a true type font. I hope it helps.

Paul Hinds
gri### [at] swbellnet

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