>The code to render height fields is strongly based upon their rectangular
>shape. The way it's coded, it's able to speed up the rendering a lot just by
>making use of this fact. If you distort the height field's shape, you lose
>this property and the height field will render at the same speed as a mesh.
>Therefore, you might as well use a mesh...

Right! But there is no mesh! That's the problem. How do I get that mesh?
There's only 2D pictures with POV turning it into something that looks like
a mesh.

I'm talking about outputting a mesh. Remember what I said about turning
isosurfaces into meshes.

>You should be able to write macros
>that will take a function or pigment and create any shape mesh you want from
>it in a height-field like fashion.
>
>In fact, I believe there are macros for cylindrical and spherical height
>fields in the standard include files somewhere.

Great... but is there a way to output a mesh?

There should be... and POV should read compressed mesh files without having
to go through a macro.
>
> - Slime
>


normdoering

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