Your comment about ray subdivision and stepping led me to think of a first
approximation to the problem: any object could be subdivided in a certain amount
of small volumes (cubes? 3D voronoi cells?), each with different ior; something
similar to FEM analysis. With small enough cells, or small enough ior
differences, focal_blur could help giving continuity to the whole object. This
approach can be done without adding new features to povray. User has the
freedom to choose the right cells dimensions (ie.e degree of approximation) for
his specific scene.

> In other words, interiors (and so IORs)
> would be specified by containing shapes (or by patterns/functions)
> different from those defining the surface intersections. The aim being
> better ways to define things like a glass full of juice without the
> coincident surface / surface ordering issues that we fight today.

I'm not a C programmer, and therefore (unfortunately) I cannot help in the deep
povray development. However, I'm an optical designer, and I work with Zemax
OpticStudio. In Zemax, the "coincident surface / surface ordering issues" is
solved in this way: any time two surfaces are coincident, the properties
governing the scene are those of the surface defined for *last*. I don't know if
this could help...

Thank you!
igmar

Post a reply to this message