Am 14.09.2014 14:42, schrieb Stephen:

>> Whether the conversion process would be render-ish or parse-ish is an
>> entirely different question.
>
> I'm out of my depth here.

A mesh representation of the scene would probably be easiest to achieve 
by parsing the scene, then having dedicated code convert each and every 
object separately into a mesh.

A voxel ("volume pixel", i.e. 3D array of boxes) representation of the 
scene could be generated in a similar way; it could, however, also be 
generated by having POV-Ray parse the scene, and then use existing code 
in the render engine to systematically ray-trace it, collecting not only 
colour information but also the intersection position information.

>> As a matter of fact this is the direction the dev team intends to go, in
>> order to make it easier to integrate components of POV-Ray into other
>> pieces of software - be it as an input filter or a render engine. But it
>> won't happen overnight, and I won't be the only one working towards this
>> goal.
>>
> Are we thinking about Pov 4.0?

Not exactly; more like POV-Ray 3.8 and 3.9, as POV-Ray 4.0 will most 
probably be the step that introduces a brand new parser with a brand new 
syntax. That'll obviously be easier to implement once we already have a 
clear-cut API for the render engine.

>> I've even heard tell that it is typically used with sharp tools to
>> remove parts of the material. :-)
>>
> And abrasive ones for Anti-Aliasing.

*ROTFLMAO!*

> Think wood turning, it is simpler and more "hands on".

Well, the primary tool used for that /is/ a lathe, isn't it?

Actually that's the thing I'm primarily thinking of - certainly not a 
CNC metal-machining lathe, that would be boring (uh... no pun intended).

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