Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:

> This is a nice try but... it is not a /stacking/ of stones. It is a
> crackled volume. If you drop stones, they will behave differently from
> what you see here.

Indeed - it wasn't really even supposed to be a "try" - it was just a blatant
cut&paste with a minor tweak or two to get it to run and close up the gaps a bit
- to show that with a wee bit of POV-Ray magic, a 3-dimensional Voronoi diagram
that gives the appearance of a pile of "stones" is THAT quick and easy - no
math, no (user-written) algorithms, no staying up late, pulling out one's
(remaining) hair, no crying in the corner because you're stoopid.

And to pick nits, if you drop stones, they will of course [sic] behave
differently than if you stack them.

AND the end result is going to be a product of however the user codes the scene
anyway, will will be a further layer of deviation from reality.

I'd say we're at a juncture where the parameters of the project need to be
defined.  But there still all sorts of fun variations on the theme that we can
play with - unconstrained by the prof.   :)
(which is what the _really_ good students ought to be doing along the way / in
addition to the stated project)

"So, I made that rock pile that you wanted - but I also did a few old Scottish
castles, the Great Wall of China, a cross-section of an archaeological
excavation site with some fossil meshes thrown in, an animated exploding Rice
Krispy treat, the rubble in the aftermath of a Kalifornia earthquake, and I've
begun a study on the kinetics of settling in a mixture of sand, aggregate, and
cement in pre-mixed concrete....... by the way is there any more coffee?"
;)

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