POV-Ray

The Persistence of Vision Raytracer (POV-Ray).

This is the legacy Bug Tracking System for the POV-Ray project. Bugs listed here are being migrated to our github issue tracker. Please refer to that for new reports or updates to existing ones on this system.

IDCategoryTask TypeReported InPrioritySeverity  descSummaryStatusProgressDue In Version
229Image formatFeature Request3.70 RC3Very LowLowClock value into EXIF data for PNGTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

The best time for a picture....

I set the day time and so the position of the sun by “clock=”

Normal I document my source very good, but this time,
I forgot the clock seting for the picture of my book cover.

So I would find it very practicall to put the clock value
and other setings for rendering
into EXIF data of the picture.

230User interfaceFeature Request3.70 RC3Very LowLowImproved handling of animationsTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

October to middle November, I prodduced a 5 minutes video mainly py POVRAY.

Here a part of the video.ini file

#

# szenes based on games.pov
#

#game-pat
#Initial_Frame=450 - time scale 1000 - 30 seconds
#Final_Frame=899
#Initial_Clock=-12500
#Final_Clock=17500

#game-lost - time scale 1000 - 22 seconds
#Initial_Frame=0
#Final_Frame=659
#Initial_Clock=2000
#Final_Clock=24000

#game-lost - time scale 3000 - 12 seconds - fast through the night
#Initial_Frame=0
#Final_Frame=359
#Initial_Clock=24000
#Final_Clock=60000

#book-cover
#clock=64000

#game-sunrise - time scale 1000 - 35 seconds
#Initial_Frame=0
#Final_Frame=1049
#Initial_Clock=60000
#Final_Clock=95000

Now imagine all the problems:

One computer crashes often because of thermal problems.
Last picture rendere 487.

Now calculate the setings, that this computer continues the task at 487

Or 2 computers should render a scene.

Sounds very easy. Something like computer 1 makes 0..499 computer 2 makes 500..999.

But the computers are different in speed and the pictures are
very different in computation time.

So it would be best

computer 1: 0 to 999
computer 2: 999 to 0

They would meet in the middle, where ever this middle is.

So it would be much easier with

#game-sunrise - time scale 1000 - 35 seconds
Initial_Frame=0
Final_Frame=1049
Initial_Clock=60000
Final_Clock=95000
Initial_Task=487
Final_Task=1049

So I have not to calculate the exact clock seting,
when a computer sould continue a task after crashing at picture 487

#game-sunrise - time scale 1000 - 35 seconds
Initial_Frame=0
Final_Frame=1049
Initial_Clock=60000
Final_Clock=95000
Initial_Task=1049
Final_Task=0

This would be the reverse calcualtion order.
Starting with picture 1049 and going down 1048..1047

240Geometric PrimitivesFeature Request3.70 RC3Very LowLowObject for efficient automatic periodic pavementTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

Whenever some object is to be periodically repeated in some kind of grid, you can achieve this with macros, but it
a) wastes a lot of resources

 even if object references are implemented in the future, wrapper with its own transformation matrix still takes space and bookkeeping

b) is not infinite

 annoying when making infinite planar tiling with arbitrary objects
 like an approximate water surface or tiling with real bricks
 or anything that needs to extend to horizon

c) is not optimized for periodicity

I think it can be very efficiently implemented as an object that takes a finite object argument (like CSG functions) and can be periodic in either 1D,2D or (possibly dangeorous?) 3D with specified period. In each dimension, the number of repetitions can be any integer or even infinity (or max_int). Something like
periodicity <2,2,Infinity> 2 copies in 1 direction, 2 in the other, infinite in the third
grid_separation <1,2,2>
1 unit size in first direction, 2 unit sizes in the other two

All the code needs to do is raytrace in the current unit cell and if the ray passes uninterrupted, pass it through the neighbouring unit cell (which means trace a translated ray through the same object). The object itself would just feel an additional clipping box, everything else would work seamlessly.

In case of infinite column of transparent object, max_trace stops the infinite loop anyway.

This is just a suggestion, I realize this is more of a long-term change but it is quite easy to implement and would simplify a large number of projects.

246OtherPossible Bug3.70 RC6Very LowLowRegression on scale limit between 3.7 and previous rele...Tracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

From Thomas de Groot

Using the following code for a (sky) sphere in a scene, with light source well outside the sphere;
works correctly until the above scale value. Use a value of >=100*10e4 and the sphere becomes black.

#version 3.7;
global_settings{ assumed_gamma 1.0 }

#declare T_sky =
texture {
  pigment {
    gradient y
    pigment_map {
      [0.0 srgb <1.0,0.7,0.6>*1 transmit 0.5]
      [1.0 srgb <0.8,0.1,0.0>*1 transmit 0.5]
    }
  }
  finish {
    emission 0.9
    diffuse 0.0
  }
}

#declare T_cosmos =
texture {
  pigment {
    color rgbt <0,0,0,1>
  }
  finish {
    ambient 0.0
    diffuse 0.0
  }
}

sphere {
  <0,0,0>,1
  texture {T_sky}
  interior_texture {T_cosmos}
  no_shadow
  no_reflection
  inverse
  scale 99.9*10e4
}

Working with windows version of POV-Ray and Win7 x64

Is this normal for version 3.7 RC5? I seem to remember that with lower
versions of POV-Ray on could go at least to 10e6. Especially with the
Ringworld scenes back in 2010 the scales used where much larger without
any black out.

I can indeed confirm that the Ringworld scene does not render correctly anymore, with identical black out.

248Parser/SDLFeature RequestNot applicableVery LowLowImplement mechanism to compute direction of a splineTracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

The SDL currently provides no way to compute the exact direction of a spline at a given location, even though mathematically this is a piece of cake: The first-order derivative of any spline section gives you the “speed” as a vector function, and is trivial to compute for polynomial splines (which are behind all spline types that POV-Ray supports); the normalized “speed” vector, in turn, gives the “pure” direction.

For exact direction/speed computations, I propose to extend the SDL invocation syntax as follows to allow for evaluating a spline’s derivative:

    SPLINE_INVOCATION:
        SPLINE_IDENTIFIER ( FLOAT [, SPLINE_TYPE] [, FLOAT] )

or

    SPLINE_INVOCATION:
        SPLINE_IDENTIFIER ( FLOAT [, FLOAT] [, SPLINE_TYPE] )

where the second FLOAT will specify the order of derivative to evaluate (defaulting to 0). In order to compute the position, direction, and acceleration of an object traveling along a certain spline, one could then for instance use:

    #declare S        = spline { ... }
    #declare Pos      = S(Time);
    #declare VSpeed   = S(Time,1);
    #declare VAccel   = S(Time,2);
    #declare Dir      = vnormalize(VSpeed);
    #declare Speed    = vlength(VSpeed);
    #declare AccelDir = vnormalize(VAccel);
    #declare GForce   = vlength(VAccel) / 9.81;

Alternatively, a mechanism may be devised to create a spline representing another spline’s derivative; however, it would be debatable whether the syntax should be parameter-like (being an added information that could be overridden again when creating other splines from such a derived spline), or operation-like (converting the spline), and in the latter case how it should affect spline type (and consequently control points); so the spline invocation parameter approach might be more straightforward, with less potential surprises for the user.

252PhotonsDefinite Bug3.70 RC6Very LowLowphotons and light_group is brokenTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

photons are not working when used with a light_group. verified in NG posting in p.general a simple scene file is attached.

256Texture/Material/FinishFeature Request3.70 RC6Very LowLowCSG texturing modesTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

At times, the current method of specifying texture for
CSG components and compounds is restricting. The issue
pops up now and then, see e.g.

http://news.povray.org/povray.pov4.discussion.general/thread/%3Cweb.4799def8e1857b77c150d4c10%40news.povray.org%3E/

http://news.povray.org/povray.general/thread/%3Cweb.4fc892634f065c00e32b83540@news.povray.org%3E/

http://news.povray.org/povray.general/thread/%3Cweb.5073e9f7dae1fbb2d97ee2b90%40news.povray.org%3E/

There should be a new CSG option “texture_mode” or similar, which could take
one of the following values:

preserve (the current behavior)
cutaway (the current behavior when specifying cutaway_textures)
override (replace all individual textures with compound texture)
layer (layer the compound texture over the existing textures)

and possibly, more involved

modify/merge: if both element and compund textures are simple, i.e.
not layered or mapped, override all default values of the element
textures with the values from the compound texture. The idea would
be to, e.g., have the elements already pigmented but then apply
common normal or finish properties.

263Parser/SDLFeature Request3.70 RC6Very LowLowFunctions and patterns for finish variationsTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

the pigment {} and normals {} sections allow spatial variation of color, transparency and normal map. On the other hand, the specular parameter is a fixed scalar. This removes many possibilities. For instance, specularity could vary in space (speckles of oil or water on a surface, worn-out finish, having specularity reduce where the pigment transparency increases) and have color components. With current settings, the light’s color is simply multiplied by the scalar specified by “specular”, whereas multiplying each component with different color could create diverse effects (the “metallic” keyword already acts similar to duplicating the specular color from the pigment). The syntax could be exactly the same as for the pigment (all the patterns, color maps, image maps and functions would apply, allowing reuse of most of the code).

The effect can now be partially faked by having patterned textures, but it requires a very complex code and the lack of layering of patterned textures makes it difficult to vary the specularity and pigment separately.

In a similar way, roughness and brilliance could also vary in space.

Doing the same for varying reflectivity would be more difficult, as it has angular dependence and possibilty of Fresnel calculation, but it could at least be a full color instead of a simple scalar multiplier. For instance, having a blue surface that reflects only red component of the light should not be impossible.

I think at least part of this functionality actually makes the scene description language more uniform and self-consistent.

269Texture/Material/FinishPossible Bug3.70 RC6Very LowLowTransparent Objects inside Media Cause ArtefactsTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

When placing a transparent object inside another object which contains media, artefacts may occur (see attached file). They look similar to specular highlights or are just strange white spots in the image.

I discovered artefacts of that kind first in the image of which MediaArtefactDetail.png is a cropped part. The code I managed to reproduce such artefacts with contained a “starfield” sphere

sphere {
  <0,0,0>, 1
  
  pigment { rgbt 1 }
  
  interior {
    media {
      emission rgb 1/10
      density {
        crackle form <1,0,0>
        density_map {
          [0.0 rgb 1]
          [0.05 rgb 0]
        }
        scale 0.002
      }
    }
  }
  
  scale 1000
  
  hollow on
}

and a transparent sphere

sphere {
  <0,0,0>, 1
  
  pigment { rgbt 1 }
  
  scale 2
  
  hollow on
}

which is, obviously, completely inside the other sphere. So is the camera.

Since the sphere has a pigment { rgbt 1 }, it should be completely invisible, which is correctly rendered as long as the scaling factor is 1 and hollow off (MediaArtefact1.png). Changing hollow to on does not yet produce the artefact, but the right half of the output image seems to be shifted by one pixel (MediaArtefact2.png). Changing the scaling factor to 2 (as it is in the above code) produces the artefact (MediaArtefact3.png). Changing the camera location (MediaArtefact4.png) does not change anything, the artefact just “moves with the sphere”. Changing the sphere size again, however, seems to stir up the “stars” in the “starfield” sphere while not removing the artefacts (MediaArtefact5.png). Changing hollow to off again does neither (MediaArtefact6.png).

The artefacts are definitely no specular highlights. There is not even a light source in the scene that could produce any. I used POV-Ray 3.7 RC6 to render the images, but the artefact shown in MediaArtefactDetail.png already occured in POV-Ray 3.6 which I used to render that image.

275Light sourceDefinite Bug3.70 RC7Very LowLowcircular area lights exhibit anisotropyTracked on GitHub
50%
Future release Task Description

circular area lights exhibit some anisotropy, being brighter along the diagonals than on average, as can be demonstrated with the following scene:

//+w800 +h800
#version 3.7;
global_settings{assumed_gamma 1}
plane{-z,-10 pigment{rgb 1} finish{ambient 0 brilliance 0}}
disc{0,z,10000,0.5}
camera{orthographic location z look_at 10*z up y*12 right x*12}
light_source{-10*z rgb 10 area_light 10*x 10*y 257 257 adaptive 4 circular}
286Texture/Material/FinishPossible Bug3.70 RC7Very LowLowreflection exponent other than 1 causes black artifacts...Tracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

[EDIT: Original title was “radiosity causing black patches when using emission less than 0”]

see attached image for reference.

mountain on left has emission set to -.13 and black patches show up, when emmission set to 0 or greater no patches

changing max_trace or any radiosity settings has no effect

setting no_radiosity on mountain fixed problem as a temp fix

code sample ...

#version 3.7;

#default { finish { ambient 0 } }
#declare rad_lvl = 4;

global_settings {
  assumed_gamma 1
  max_trace_level max(5,rad_lvl*3)
  adc_bailout .007
  ambient_light 0
  radiosity {
   pretrace_start 64/max(image_width,image_height)
   #if(rad_lvl)
    pretrace_end max(2,int(8/rad_lvl))/max(image_width,image_height)
   #else
    pretrace_end 32/max(image_width,image_height)
   #end
   count pow(rad_lvl+1,2)*10
   nearest_count 1
   #if(rad_lvl) error_bound 1/rad_lvl #end
   low_error_factor max(.4,(8-rad_lvl)/10)
   recursion_limit 1
   gray_threshold .25
   brightness 1
   max_sample 1
   normal on
   media off
   always_sample off
   minimum_reuse min(.008,8/max(image_width,image_height))
   maximum_reuse .1
   adc_bailout .02
  }
}

#declare sunC = rgb <1, 1, .9925>; // actual D65 standard illuminant
#declare SkyC = rgb <.3195, .5745, .8805>;
#macro GammaAdj(C,G) rgb <pow(C.red,G),pow(C.green,G),pow(C.blue,G)> #end

light_source {
  50000*y
  sunC*1.06
  area_light <-300, 0, -300>, <300, 100, 300>, 3, 3
  rotate <-28, 0, 14>
  adaptive 0
  circular
}

 sphere { 0, 1
  texture {
   pigment{
    gradient y
    pigment_map{
     [.07 GammaAdj(SkyC,.5)]
     [.2 average pigment_map { [.5 GammaAdj(SkyC,.75)][1 wrinkles turbulence .65 octaves 5 lambda 3 omega .9 color_map { [.2 rgb 1][.5 SkyC] } scale <10, .1, 1>] }]
     [.4 GammaAdj(SkyC,1.15)]
     [.5 GammaAdj(SkyC,1.35)]
    }
    rotate -75*y scale <1, 1, 100>
   }
   finish { diffuse .72 }
  }
  scale 100000
  inverse
 }


#declare Cam_pos = Cam_pos + <0, 20, -40>;
#declare Cam_lkt = Cam_lkt + <0, 10, 50>;
camera {
  location Cam_pos
  direction <0,0,1>
  right 1.33*x
  up y
  sky <0,1,0>
  #if(Cam_agl) angle Cam_agl #end
  look_at Cam_lkt
}

#macro sinai(HillQ)
 #local F = function { pattern { granite poly_wave 4 turbulence .01 lambda 2.1 omega .9 scale 5 translate <.2, 0, 18.08> scale <2, 1, 3> } }
 #local N = function { pigment { crackle ramp_wave turbulence .3 lambda 2.2 omega .76 color_map {[0 rgb 0][1 rgb 1] } scale .07 translate <-.15, -.12, .13> } }
 height_field {
  function HillQ, HillQ { F(x,y,z) + N(x,y,z).grey/47 }
  water_level .05
  clipped_by { box { <0, .05, .3>, <1, 1, 1> } }
  translate <-.5, -.05, -.5>
  rotate 20*y
  texture {
   pigment{ crackle color_map { [0 rgb <161, 107, 71>/255][.25 rgb <193, 132, 93>/255][.35 rgb <218, 163, 123>/255][.45 rgb <212, 153, 112>/255][.55 rgb <222, 166, 125>/255][.65 rgb <236, 178, 124>/255][.75 rgb <220, 154, 102>/255][.85 rgb <160, 121, 103>/255] } turbulence .75 lambda 3 omega .7 scale .1 }
   finish{ diffuse albedo .56 emission -.13 specular .25 roughness .02 brilliance 1.5 metallic 1.3 }
   normal { crackle poly_wave .7 turbulence .4 omega .8 scale <.007, .03, .007> }
  }
  rotate 12*y
  scale <2400, 2000, 3000>*1.5
  translate <1900, 0, 1900>
  scale <-1,1,1>
  no_radiosity
 }
#end


sinai(1600)
plane { y,0 pigment { rgb <1, 1, 1> } }

//courtyard gating not included due to size of code and many external files needed. add anything around <0,0,0> to try to reproduce effect of error
287Light sourceDefinite Bug3.70 RC7Very LowLowarea_illumination shadow calculationTracked on GitHub
50%
Future release Task Description

not sure if this is something needing further work or an intended effect.

Shadows from and area light with area_illumination on seem to follow the same shadow calculation as a standard area light by giving more weight to lights near the center of the array. I would assume the shadows would be calculated similarly to individual lights in the same pattern as the array by evenly distributing the amount of shadow equally for each light. But this is not what I see.

The code sample below when rendered with scene 1 will show shadows grouped near the center from the area light with area_illumination. If scene 1 is commented out and scene 2 is uncommented then rendered, you will see evenly distributed shadows from individual lights. Area lighting with area_illumination I would assume should give a result identical to scene 2. If scene 1 is rendered with area_illumination off, the shadow calculation is exactly the same as with area_illumination on.

example images rendered on win32 XP

#version 3.7;

global_settings {
 ambient_light 0
 assumed_gamma 1
}

camera {
  location <0, 3, -5>
  look_at <0, 2, 0>
}

background { rgb <.3, .5, .8> }
plane { y,0 pigment { rgb .7 } }
torus { 1.5,.1 rotate 90*x translate 4*z pigment { rgb .2 } }
plane { -z,-7 pigment { rgb .7 } }

/*
// scene 1
light_source{
  y
  1
  area_light 3*x, z, 7, 1
  area_illumination on
}
union {
 sphere { 0,.05 }
 sphere { .5*x,.05 }
 sphere { x,.05 }
 sphere { 1.5*x,.05 }
 sphere { -.5*x,.05 }
 sphere { -x,.05 }
 sphere { -1.5*x,.05 }
 translate y
  hollow pigment { rgbt 1 } interior { media { emission 10 } }
}
// end scene 1
*/


// scene 2
#declare Light = light_source {
  0
  1/7
  looks_like { sphere { 0,.05 hollow pigment { rgbt 1 } interior { media { emission 10 } } } }
}

union {
 object { Light }
 object { Light translate .5*x }
 object { Light translate x }
 object { Light translate 1.5*x }
 object { Light translate -.5*x }
 object { Light translate -x }
 object { Light translate -1.5*x }
 translate y
}
// end scene 2

288Geometric PrimitivesPossible Bug3.70 RC7Very LowLowTolerance problem with refraction in blobs in CSG inter...Tracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

If a blob is intersected by something else, the composite object has incorrect refractions if it is too small (in absolute units). Having the same object constructed without a blob, the errors happen at much smaller scales. The errors don’t affect solid objects, just refractions.

An example shows a half-sphere, constructed as CSG sphere + plane, and identical half-pshere, constructed as CSG blob + plane. When the scale of the entire construction is changed, the refractions disappear first for the blob, and at 100x times smaller scale, also for the sphere. The right side shows the solid version, showing that the surface intersection test is ok, it’s just the refraction that fails.

The problem is not present when looking from the curved side (the blob side). So the ray that hits the blob, gets refracted correctly, but the ray that hits the intersecting plane first, and should then refract in the blob from the inside, doesn’t work. If in attached sphere, you exchange -y with y in clipping planes, everything is ok.

The scale when this happens is not very small - blobs of radius 0.02 already fail (noticed because in 1=1metre scale, blob raindrops on a glass plate didn’t have intersections when looking from the back).

Examples are named by factor=9,0.9,0.09,0.009 and you can see first the blob (top) refraction gets smaller and disappears, then later the bottom (sphere) also gets the same problem.

289Light sourcePossible Bug3.70 RC7Very LowLowarea_illumination with light fading and scattering medi...Tracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

with reference to http://bugs.povray.org/task/46

still some issue with area illumination and light fading when interacting with media

seems light fade is not taken into account with scattering media.
emission and absorption media seem to work fine.
occurs with all scattering types.

#version 3.7;

global_settings {
 ambient_light 0
 assumed_gamma 1
}

camera {
  location <0, 3, -5>
  look_at <0, 2, 0>
}


#declare Light = 3; // light 1 = individual lights
                   // light 2 = standard area light
                   // light 3 = area light with area illumination

#declare Fade = 1; // light fading: 1 on, 0 off

#declare Media = 1; // media 1 = scattering
                    // media 2 = emission
                    // media 3 = absorption

#declare Type = 1; // scattering media type


#switch(Light)
 #case(1)

  #declare Ls = light_source {
    0
    1/7
    #if(Fade) fade_distance 2 fade_power 2 #end
  }

  union {
   object { Ls }
   object { Ls translate .5*x }
   object { Ls translate x }
   object { Ls translate 1.5*x }
   object { Ls translate -.5*x }
   object { Ls translate -x }
   object { Ls translate -1.5*x }
   translate y
  }

 #break
 #case(2)

  light_source{
    y
    1
    area_light 3*x, z, 7, 1
    #if(Fade) fade_distance 2 fade_power 2 #end
  }

 #break
 #case(3)

  light_source{
    y
    1
    area_light 3*x, z, 7, 1
    #if(Fade) fade_distance 2 fade_power 2 #end
    area_illumination on
  }

 #break

#end


cylinder { <0, .01, 0>, <0, 5, 0>, 2 pigment { rgbt 1 } hollow no_shadow
 interior {
  media {
   #if(Media = 1) scattering {Type, 30 } #end
   #if(Media = 2) emission 2 #end
   #if(Media = 3) absorption 2 #end
    density { cylindrical turbulence 1.5 scale <1, .14, 1> }
  }
 }
 scale <.15, 1, .4> translate 4*z
}

plane { y,0 pigment { rgb .7 } }
plane { -z,-7 pigment { gradient y color_map { [.5 rgb 1][.5 rgb 0] } } }
union {
 sphere { 0,.05 }
 sphere { .5*x,.05 }
 sphere { x,.05 }
 sphere { 1.5*x,.05 }
 sphere { -.5*x,.05 }
 sphere { -x,.05 }
 sphere { -1.5*x,.05 }
 translate y
  hollow pigment { rgbt 1 } interior { media { emission 10 } }
}
292Geometric PrimitivesUnimp. Feature/TODO3.70 RC7Very LowLowArbitrary containing object for isosurfacesTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

A low priority thought for the future: isosurface now only allows contained_by to be a sphere or a box. It would be more intuitive to allow the same objects that are allowed in clipped_by and bounded_by (although it probably needs to be finite). It would enable allow much faster rendering in many cases:

1) There are a lot of cases when the sphere or a box are very bad in bounding - if an object has a hole, a torus may be better, and in many cases, cylindrical bounding would help a lot.
2) Sometimes, having a too large contained_by object includes far-away parts of the iso-function, and expose large gradients that you want to avoid. If a bounding object is better, you can decrease the max_gradient and speed up the render.
3) The isosurface is usually much more expensive to calculate than any normal bounding object, so it’s an improvement even if the intesection test is not as fast as bounding box.
4) A typical case: if you use texture-like functions to make the surface realistically rough, you know almost exactly what the bounding object is - it can be the original unmodified object.
5) For isosurface terrains, a preprocessing macro could create a rough mesh-like bounding object to contain the “mountains”, thus making everything faster.
6) In case you want clipping, having the contained_by set to the same object probably avoits calculating too many intersections.

The main modification is probably that the intersections of bounding objects can be split into more than one interval - but it’s probably worth it, the isosurfaces are usually a speed bottleneck.

293User interfacePossible Bug3.70 RC7Very LowLowPOV-Ray Shown Twice in Windows TaskbarTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

When rendering for some time, it occasionally happens that POV-Ray appears twice in the Windows taskbar. One button is the normal one, the other one does not open any window when clicked on and reads something like “99% complete” (see attached image), like the render window’s title, but obviously unrelated to it (probably the title the render window had shortly before?). After stopping the render, the odd taskbar button remains there until POV-Ray is closed.

  • Observed under Windows XP
  • POV-Ray 3.7.0.RC7.msvc10-sse2.win32
  • When applications are summarized into groups in the taskbar by Windows, the odd POV-Ray button is attached to the Windows Explorer group
  • Run with render priority set to “high”

Is this a Bug in Windows or in POV-Ray?

295User interfaceDefinite Bug3.70 RC7Very LowLowMinor GUI BugsTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

Here are two low-priority bugs in POV-Ray’s GUI, observed by me under Windows XP, which should be easy to fix I think:

  • In the “Insert” menu, there are sub-menus (e.g. “Radiosity and Photons”) in which there are menu seperators at the end of the popped-up menu bar.
  • The progress bar in the top-right corner of the editor window seems to be too large for the window (203px) and therefore clipped. As a result, progress seems to be 100% when it is not yet, e.g. at 90% progress. (Have not measured exactly.)

Both bugs are not severe at all, but it would be nice if they could be fixed.
By the way, a second progress bar could be added to visualize the number of frames already rendered in an animation.

299Parser/SDLFeature Request3.70 RC7Very LowLowObject Properties FeatureTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

Up to POV-Ray 3.7 RC7 it has not been possible so far to declare custom properties for POV-Ray’s objects, which would be especially useful for complex objects defined in include files.

Currently, if you want to have an object (e.g. a car) with certain variable parameters (e.g. colour, wheel rotation, ...) defined in an include file and the parameters set by a scene file which uses the include file, you have to choose one of the following approaches:

1. use a macro

#macro car(colour, wheelrot, ...)
  ...
#end

or, 2. check parameters declared before, e.g.

#declare car =
union {
  
  #ifdef (colour)
    #local colour_internal = colour;
  #else
    #local colour_internal = default_colour;
  #end
  
}

The resulting object would be used in the following way:

  #include "car.inc" // include file once
  object {
    car(rgb <1,0,0>, 0, ...) // macro approach
  }
  // other approach
  #declare colour = rgb <1,0,0>;
  #declare wheelrot = 0;
  ...
  #include "car.inc" // include file every time you want to have a car object instance
  object {
    car
  }

Needless to say, both approaches are not quite optimal.

  • The macro approach needs only one #include directive and name conflicts will (hopefully) not be a problem. However, one would have to look up the parameter order of the macro in the include file, in the worst case every time the macro is used.
  • The other approach needs as many #include directives as car objects shall be instantiated, there can arise name conflicts with other inculde files used in the scene, and a (potentially long) list of parameters has to be declared before each #include. On the other hand, with this approach for any value it is clear which information it gives, e.g. #declare colour = rgb <1,0,0> can easily be read as ‘set car colour to “red”‘.

My suggestion would be creating an SDL feature to

  • declare which properties a certain object can have
  • set these properties inside the object statement in which the object is used.

One step up could be to even declare object classes along with them.

This could look like this:

// include file code
class car { // alternatively (without classes) use #declare car = object { ...
  property colour = rgb <1,0,0>; // with default colour
  
  union {
    ...
  }
}

// scene file code
car { // alternatively (without classes) use object { car ... }
  colour rgb <0,0,1>
}

Note that this solution makes the declarations much more concise and easy-to-read. Especially in scenes with many includes and animation scenes where objects’ properties have to be manipulated according to sometimes complex functions, this would be very useful. Please also consider that such user-defined objects can have dozens of properties.

301OtherDefinite Bug3.70 RC7Very LowLowFallback to default image size causes wrong values to b...Tracked on GitHub
50%
Task Description

When resolution is not specified (neither via POVRAY.INI nor via QUICKRES.INI nor via command line or custom .ini file), random values are displayed for image resolution in the Image Output Options message output. (The actual render will be performed at the default size of 160×120 pixels though.)

302OtherPossible Bug3.70 RC7Very LowLowconfusing error message when .ini file cannot be parsedTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

When a command-line parameter in an .ini file cannot be parsed (such as “+a.3”), POV-Ray reports a “Problem with setting”, quoting the command line, rather than indicating that the problem occurred in an .ini file. This leads the user to think that the problem is with the command line itself, unnecessarily confusing him.

309Parser/SDLDefinite Bug3.70 RC7Very LowLowWarning Message MissingTracked on GitHub
0%
3.71 release Task Description

Draw_Vistas, Light_Buffer, and Vista_Buffer (plus associated switches) do not issue warning when used, even tho code has been disabled.

310EditorFeature Request3.70 RC7Very LowLowEditor should remember bookmarksTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

Now the editor remembers only the cursor positions of the loaded files when starting a new PR session. It would be more friendly to remember whether the window was split or not, as well as the bookmarks.

311User interfacePossible Bug3.70 releaseVery LowLowElepsed time error on very long rendersTracked on GitHub
0%
3.71 release Task Description

On a very long render, around day 24, the elapsed time display becomes incorrect, showing 4294967272d 4294967272h 4294967272m 4294967272s.

Found on Windows 7 64 bits and reproduced on Windows 7 32 bits.
NOT reported on other platforms.

319Texture/Material/FinishFeature Request3.70 releaseVery LowLowAdd interior to #default directiveTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

When working with predefined materials, it would be useful to have something like:

#if (!Use_photons)
  #default { interior { caustics 1 } }
#end

#include "my_predefined_materials.inc"

Default medias or IORs could also be useful.

321OtherDefinite Bug3.70 releaseVery LowLowbounding threshold inconsistencyTracked on GitHub
90%
Task Description

User reported documentation inconsistency. Investigation led to the discovery of a bug in the setting of the current default value.

~source/frontend/renderfrontend.cpp reports the value “3” while ~source/backend/scene/scene.cpp sets a default value of “1”

Before for addressing this issue, are there any thoughts as to what the default value should be?

326OtherDefinite Bug3.70 releaseVery LowLowrestricted setting ignored in 3.7Tracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

Due to a typo in the conf file parser (introduced, I think, in refactoring after 3.6), the restricted setting is ignored, and access checks aren’t performed.

Fixing this reveals some other issues:

  • %INSTALLDIR%/../../etc is incompletely canonicalized to /usr/local/share/../etc, not /usr/local/etc
  • read+write paths are added to the read list only, so writing is impossible

See attached patch.

Relatedly, I think it would be nice to add a new replacement token %CONFDIR% instead of %INSTALLDIR%/../../etc.

Also, there’s a realpath function that could simplify path handling, though I’m not sure if it’s available on all platforms.

327Parser/SDLFeature Request3.70 releaseVery LowLowSupport for non-ASCII characters in filename stringsTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

pov 3.7 Can not identify the Chinese.I give the texture map filename in chinese,it turns out parse error.

333User interfaceFeature Request3.70 releaseVery LowLowMake text in "about" alt+b dialog selectable with the m...Tracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

When you press alt+b or access the “about” dialog in the Help menu it displays some text including software version number and list of contributors.

It would be nice to be able to select and copy this text using this mouse. Sometimes in the newsgroup I have to tell people what version of POVray I am using, and typing the version number can be a pain.

334Texture/Material/FinishFeature Request3.70 releaseVery LowLowHLS colorsTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

It would be nice to be able to specify colors in HLS as well as RGB.

Currently, you can use a macor to convert individual colors. But this does not work in color_maps where you want smooth gradations/interpolations between two or several colors.

335Parser/SDLPossible Bug3.70 releaseVery LowLowmacro works in variable but not in arrayTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

This doesn’t work:

#declare pavement_object = array[2]
{

object {trash_can_macro()	scale 3/4			translate -x * 1/2},
object {potted_plant_macro(_CT_rand2)	scale 3/4	scale 3/2	translate -x * 1/2}

}

This does work:

#declare trash_can_object = object {trash_can_macro()};
#declare potted_plant_object = object {potted_plant_macro(_CT_rand2)};
#declare pavement_object = array[2]
{

object {trash_can_object	scale 3/4			translate -x * 1/2},
object {potted_plant_object	scale 3/4	scale 3/2	translate -x * 1/2}

}

Logically, I cannot see a reason for this to be so.

6Subsurface ScatteringUnimp. Feature/TODO3.70 beta 32DeferLowIntegrate Subsurface Scattering with PhotonsTracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

Subsurface scattering must be made photon-aware.

8RadiosityUnimp. Feature/TODO3.70 beta 32DeferLowImprove Radiosity "Cross-Talk" Rejection in CornersTracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

Near concave edges, radiosity samples may be re-used at a longer distance away from the edge than towards the edge; there is code in place to ensure this, but it only works properly where two surfaces meet roughly rectangularly, while failing near the junction of three surfaces or non-rectangular edges, potentially causing “cross-talk”.

It should be investigated how the algorithm can be improved or replaced to better cope with non-trivial geometry.

25AnimationDefinite Bug3.70 beta 32DeferLowPause sometimes fails when rendering animationTracked on GitHub
90%
Task Description

There is an issue where the pause button in POVWIN will sometimes not work during an animation (primarily where the frame rate is high), and furthermore, POVWIN can then get into a state where it’s not possible to use the pause until it is re-started.

Newsgroup report.

58Parser/SDLUnimp. Feature/TODO3.70 beta 32DeferLowallow SDL code to detect optional featuresTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

Some features are optional in custom builds of POV-Ray (I’m thinking about OpenEXR in particular); it would be nice to have a syntax for an SDL script to check for support of such features, so it may take some fallback action if the feature is not supported.

85OtherFeature RequestNot applicableDeferLowAspect ratio issuesTracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

Background

When rendering an image, there are actually three aspect ratios involved:

1) The aspect ratio of the camera, set with the up and right vectors.

2) The aspect ratio of the rendered image, set with the +W and +H parameters.

3) The aspect ratio of the pixels in the intended target medium. While this is very often 1:1, it’s definitely not always so (anamorphic images are common in some media, such as DVDs).

The aspect ratio of the camera does not (and arguably should not, although some people might disagree) define the aspect ratio of the image resolution, but the aspect ratio of the image as shown on the final medium. In other words, it defines how the image should be displayed, not what the resolution of the image should be.

This of course means that the aspect ratio of the target medium pixels has to be taken into account when specifying the image resolution. If the target medium pixels are not 1:1 (eg. when rendering for a medium with non-square pixels, or when rendering an anamorphic image eg. for a DVD), the proper resolution has to be specified so that the aspect ratio of the displayed image remains the same as the one specified in the camera block.

This isn’t generally a problem. It usually goes like “my screen is physically 4:3, so I design my scene for that aspect ratio, but the resolution of my screen is mxn which is not 4:3, but that doesn’t matter; I just render with +Wm +Hn and I get a correct image for my screen”.

However, problems start when someone renders an image using an image aspect ratio / pixel aspect ratio combination which does not match the camera aspect ratio. By far the most common situation is rendering a scene with a 4:3 camera for a screen with square pixels but with a non-4:3 resolution (most typically 16:9 or 16:10 nowadays). The image will be horizontally
stretched.

In a few cases the effect is the reverse: The scene (and thus the camera) has been designed for some less-typical aspect ratio, eg. a cinematic 2.4:1 aspect ratio, but then someone renders the image with a 4:3 resolution. The resulting image will be horizontally squeezed.

In a few cases this is actually the correct and desired behavior, ie. when you are really rendering the image in an anamorphic format (eg. for a DVD). However, often it’s an inadverted mistake.

Some people argue that this default behavior should be changed. However, there are also good arguments why it should not be changed. Some argue that POV-Ray should have more features (at the SDL level, at the command-line level or both) to control this behavior.

There are several possible situations, which is why this issue is so complicated. These situations may include:

- The scene author doesn’t really care what aspect ratio is used to render the image, even if it means that additional parts of the scenery become visible or parts are cropped away when using a different aspect ratio than what he used.

In this case the choice of camera aspect ratio should be up to the person who renders the image, and thus selectable on the command-line. However, he should have an easy choice of how changing the aspect ratio affects the image: Should it extend the viewing range, or should it crop part of it, compared to the original?

And this, of course, while still making it possible to render for an anamorphic format.

- The author wants to support different aspect ratios, but he wants to control precisely how it affects the composition of the image. Maybe he never wants anything cropped away within certain limits, but instead the image should always be extended in whichever direction is necessary due to the aspect ratio. Or maybe he wants to allow cropping the image, but only up to a certain point. Or whatever.

In this case the choice of camera aspect ratio should be up to the author, and thus selectable in the scene file, while still allowing some changes from the command-line.

- The author designed his scene for a precise aspect ratio and nothing else, and doesn’t want the image to be rendered in any other aspect ratio. Maybe he used some very peculiar aspect ratio (eg. something like 1:2, ie. twice as tall as wide) for artistic composition reasons, and wants the image rendered with that aspect ratio, period.

Perhaps the author should be able to completely forbid the change of camera aspect ratio in the command-line.

Of course anamorphic rendering should still be supported for targets with a different pixel aspect ratio.

Possible solution

This solution does not necessarily address all the problems described above perfectly, but could be a good starting point for more ideas:

Add a way to specify in the camera block minimum and maximum limits for the horizontal and vertical viewing angles (and if any of them is unspecified, it’s unlimited). Of course for this to be useful in any way, there should also be a way to change the camera and pixel aspect ratios from the command line.

The idea with this is that the author of the scene can use these angle limits to define a rectangular “protected zone” at the center of the view, using the minimum angle limits. In other words, no matter how the camera aspect ratio is modified, the horizontal and/or vertical viewing angles will never get smaller than these minimum angles. This ensures that the image will never be cropped beyond a certain limit, only extended either horizontally or vertically to ensure that the “protected zone” always remains fully visible regardless of what aspect ratio is used.

The maximum angles can be used for the reverse: They ensure that no scenery beyond a certain point will ever become visible, no matter what aspect ratio is used. This can be used to make sure that unmodelled parts of the scene never come into view. Thus the image will always be cropped to ensure this, depending on the aspect ratio.

I’m not completely sure what should be done if both minimum and maximum angles are specified, and the user specifies an aspect ratio which would break these limits. An error message could be a possibility. At least it would be a way for the author to make sure his scene is never rendered using an aspect ratio he doesn’t want. He can use these angle limits to give some leeway how much the aspect ratio can change, to an extent, or he could even force a specific aspect ratio and nothing else (by specifying that both the minimum and maximum angles are the same).

So in short:

- Add a “minimum/maximum horizontal/vertical angles” feature to the camera block. These can be used to define a “protected zone” in the image which must not be breached by command-line options.

- Add a command-line syntax to change the camera aspect ratio (which automatically obeys the “protected zone” settings). Could perhaps give an error message if the command-line options break the limits in the scene camera.

- Add a command-line syntax to specify a pixel aspect ratio other than 1:1. This can be used to render anamorphic versions of the image on purpose (iow. not by mistake).

This can probably be made backwards-compatible in that if none of these new features are used, the behavior could be the same as currently (or at least similar).

91Texture/Material/FinishFeature Request3.70 beta 36DeferLowSlope pattern applied to object is not transformed afte...Tracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

There is an big issue with the slope pattern: when the object it is applied to is instanced (again) with a transformation (in particular a rotation, as a translation would not impact.. but a shear might), the colours of the surfaces are changed.

  
object { p translate -5*x }
object { p rotate 220*y+20*x    translate 3*x }       

Nobody would expect the object to be different in appearance.
If slope {} is replaced with wood, all is fine. (as for others textures, i guess)

IMHO, the slope vector need to be adjusted for the later transformation(s) (so as to compensate the issue of using the Perturbed Normal vector).

This should not impact the AOI/FACING (experimental) patterns, as AOI definition is pretty clear about duplicating & transform if you think about it a bit, as well as FACING: for these two, it is expected to either use the ray(current point of view) or a fixed 3D point as reference. At the limit, discussion about moving the 3D point of FACING might also be opened to interpretation.

AOI/FACING are in task #19

243Geometric PrimitivesUnimp. Feature/TODOAllDeferLowSphere sweep behaves wrong when scaledTracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

The sphere_sweep renders well when specified directly, but when it is scaled, its bounding box is calculated incorrectly, which clips the object so it almost disappears.

The effect is present for all three types of splines.

I’m attaching a test scene and the rendering result. The saving of the object with #declare has no effect, I just wanted to show both transformed and untransformed version.

I don’t think this issue is related to other artifacts occuring with sphere_sweep, as it is obviously an issue of the internal bounding box.

245OtherFeature RequestAllDeferLowPOVMS message queue can fill up with GB of data for ver...Tracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

With very fast renders and very large output files, the message queue can fill up because the producers are not limited by IO, while the consumer performance is limited by disk IO. Consequently, the message queue can fill up to exhaust all available memory. The solution is to build in some better control of pending output data in the message queue on the producer side. This will also pave the way for message communication over slow links (i.e. a network).

264PhotonsUnimp. Feature/TODO3.70 RC6DeferLowImprove precision of photon direction informationTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

In the photons map, the direction of each photon is stored as separate latitude & longitude angles (encoded in one byte each), causing the longitudinal direction component’s precision to be unnecessarily high for directions close to the “poles” (Y axis); in addition, encoded value -128 is never used. For better overall precision as well as precision homogenity, the following scheme could be used instead:

  • Encode the latitude (-pi/2 to +pi/2) into LatCount=226 distinct values (= 256*sqrt(pi)/2) rounded to the next even number) from 0 to LatCount-1 using
latCode = (int)((LatCount-1) * (lat/M_PI + 0.5) + 0.5)
  • For each latitude code, define a specific number of encodable longitude values, LngCount[latCode] = approx. cos(lat)*pi*65536/(2*LatCount); this can be a pre-computed table, and may need slight tweaking for optimum use of the code space. Encode the longitude (-pi to +pi) into a value from 0 to (LngCount[lat]-1) using
LC = LngCount[latCode];
lngCode = (int)(LC * (lng/(2*M_PI) + 0.5) + 0.5) % LC;
  • Besides LngCount[latCode], also store the sum of LngCount[i] with i < latCode as LatBase[latCode]; encode the direction as
dirCode = LatBase[latCode] + lngCode;
  • For decoding, a simple lookup from a precomputed list of directions could be used (2^15 entries, i.e. one hemisphere, will suffice). To conserve space, direction vectors could be scaled by (2^N-1) and stored as (N+1)-bit signed integer triples rather than floating point values; due to the limited precision of the lat/long information, 8 bits per coordinate might be enough, giving a table size of 96k. A full double-precision table would require 786k instead.
281Geometric PrimitivesFeature Request3.70 RC7DeferLowBug in rendering of Bézier patchesTracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

In version 3.7.0.RC7.msvc10.win64, there is a bug in rendering Bézier patches in which four points (along one edge) are all the same point.

The rendering can be seen here:
http://i.imgur.com/eq2UIXR.png
[Edit: See attachment for the rendering]

As you can see, there is a visible unwanted artifact in the corner of each patch. The two patches shown are essentially the same, except with the 4×4 matrix of vertices transposed (just to demonstrate that simply transposing it didn’t fix it).

Expected rendering is a smooth surface without the artifact.

Below is the code used to render the above example.

#version 3.7;

global_settings { assumed_gamma 1.0 }

camera {

  location <45, 31, -10>
  look_at <40, 21, 200>
  right x*image_width/image_height

}

light_source {

  <660, 300, -525>
  color rgb 1

}

Example 1: First point in each row is the same point
bicubic_patch {
type 1 flatness 0.001
u_steps 4 v_steps 4
<32.2168, -23.78125, 0>, <34.4968, -23.78125, 0>, <35.2168, -23.78125, -0.72>, <35.2168, -23.78125, -3>,
<32.2168, -23.78125, 0>, <34.4968, -22.10256, 0>, <35.2168, -21.57244, -0.72>, <35.2168, -21.57244, -3>,
<32.2168, -23.78125, 0>, <33.9709, -21.55577, 0>, <34.52483, -20.85299, -0.72>, <34.52483, -20.85299, -3>,
<32.2168, -23.78125, 0>, <32.30556, -21.50298, 0>, <32.33359, -20.78352, -0.72>, <32.33359, -20.78352, -3>
rotate 180*x scale 1.4
translate ←5, 0, 0>
pigment { color <1, 0, 0> }
}
Example 2: First row is all the same point
bicubic_patch {

  type 1 flatness 0.001
  u_steps 4 v_steps 4
  <32.2168, -23.78125, 0>, <32.2168, -23.78125, 0>, <32.2168, -23.78125, 0>, <32.2168, -23.78125, 0>,
  <34.4968, -23.78125, 0>, <34.4968, -22.10256, 0>, <33.9709, -21.55577, 0>, <32.30556, -21.50298, 0>,
  <35.2168, -23.78125, -0.72>, <35.2168, -21.57244, -0.72>, <34.52483, -20.85299, -0.72>, <32.33359, -20.78352, -0.72>,
  <35.2168, -23.78125, -3>, <35.2168, -21.57244, -3>, <34.52483, -20.85299, -3>, <32.33359, -20.78352, -3>
  rotate 180*x
  scale 1.4
  pigment { color <1, 1, 0> }

}

282Image formatFeature RequestNot applicableDeferLowUnrendered region should be transparent, not blackTracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

When rendering only a region of a file, using the command-line options +sc/+sr/+ec/+er, the area of the image that is excluded comes out as black in the final PNG.

Expected behaviour is for it to be transparent.

20User interfaceFeature Request3.70 beta 32Very LowVery Lowrender window behaviorTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

When changing the behavior of the render window, “Keep above main”, requires restarting the POV editor to take effect. It would be nice either to get a warning to restart, or to get it to work without restarting.

323User interfacePossible Bug3.70 releaseVery LowVery LowTooltip for render speed status bar has wrong unitTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

Tooltip popup for render speed always displays as “Pixels per Second” rather than matching status bar. I’ve noticed it in 3 renders so far. Most of my renders are fast enough not to see any other unit besides PPS, but I should be able to reproduce again if necessary.

86Parser/SDLFeature RequestNot applicableDeferVery LowAdd support for more RNG typesTracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

The current 32-bit linear congruential generator used as RNG in POV-Ray is sometimes quite limited for some purposes and in a few cases its poor quality shows up (as has been demonstrated more than once in the newsgroup). Thus it would be nice if POV-Ray offered additional, higher-quality random number generators, besides the current one (which should probably remain for backwards compatibility). These RNGs could include algorithms like the Mersenne Twister and the ISAAC RNG, both of which have very decent quality and have an enormous periods (while at the same time being very fast).

After a long discussion, the following syntax for specifying the RNG type and seed (which may be larger than 32 bits) has been suggested:

seed(<value>) | seed(<type>, <value> [, <values>])

For example:

#declare Seed1 = seed(123); // Use the current RNG, with seed 123
#declare Seed2 = seed(1, 123); // Identical to the previous one
#declare Seed3 = seed(2, 456, 789, 123); // Use RNG algorithm #2,
                                         // with a large seed (96 bits specified here)

A C++ implementation of the ISAAC RNG can be found at http://warp.povusers.org/IsaacRand.zip

87Geometric PrimitivesFeature RequestNot applicableDeferVery LowAdd new feature: Reference objectTracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

When you instantiate an object several times, eg:

object { MyObj translate -x*10 }
object { MyObj translate x*10 }

POV-Ray will copy that object in memory, at least for most types of objects. Not for all of them, though. Most famously if MyObj is a mesh, it won’t be copied, but only a reference to the original will be used, thus saving memory. (There are a few other primitives which also don’t cause a copy, such as bicubic_patch and blob, but those are naturally not so popular as mesh, so it’s a less known fact.)

AFAIK the reason why referencing (rather than copying) is not used for all types of objects is rather complicated, and mostly related to how transformations are applied to these objects. For example if the object being instantiated is a union, the translates above will be (AFAIK) applied to the individual members of the union rather than to the union object itself.

Copying, however, can be quite detrimental in some situations. For example if you have a huge union, and you want to instantiate it many times, the memory usage will be that many times larger (compared to just one instance). This is sometimes something which the user would not want, even if it made the rendering slightly slower as a consequence. (In other words, better to be able to render the scene in the first place, rather than running out of memory.)

Redesigning POV-Ray so that all objects would be referenced rather than copied would probably be a huge job, and in some cases a questionable one. There probably are situations where the current method really produces faster rendering times, so redesigning POV-Ray so that it would always reference instead of copy, could make some scenes render slower.

So this got me thinking about an alternative approach: How hard would it be to create a special object which sole purpose is to act as a reference to another object, without copying it? This special reference object would act as any regular object, would have its own transformation matrix and all that data related to objects, but its sole purpose is to simply be a “wrapper” which references an existing object. It could be, for example, like this:

object_ref { MyObj translate -x*10 }
object_ref { MyObj translate x*10 }

The end result would be exactly identical as earlier, but the difference is that now MyObj behaves in the same way as a mesh (in the sense that it’s not instantiated twice, but only once, even though it appears twice in the scene), regardless of what MyObj is.

In some cases this might render slightly slower than the first version (because POV-Ray has to apply the transformations of the object_ref first, after which it applies whatever transformations are inside MyObj), but that’s not the point here. The point is to save memory if MyObj is large.

An object_ref would behave like any other object, so you could do things like:

#declare MyObjRef = object_ref { MyObj };

object { MyObjRef translate -x*10 }
object { MyObjRef translate x*10 }

(The only thing being instantiated (and copied) here is the “MyObjRef” object, not the object it’s referring to, so that actual object is still stored in memory only once.)

In some situations it might even be so that referenced objects actually render faster than if the objects were copied because references increase data locality, lessening cache misses.

I believe this could be a rather useful feature and should be seriously considered, unless there are some major obstacles in implementing it.

99Refactoring/CleanupUnimp. Feature/TODO3.70 beta 36DeferVery LowRefactor engine (front- & back-end) code for Unicode su...Tracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

Front- & Back-end code should be refactored for full Unicode support in scene files and strings.

129Parser/SDLFeature Request3.70 beta 37aDeferVery LowHash arraysTracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

Currently, array items may only be referenced by their index number (an integer). It would be nice to also be able to assign string values as array indexes, as in other scripting languages.

133Geometric PrimitivesFeature Request3.70 beta 37aDeferVery LowSubdivision supportTracked on GitHub
0%
Future release Task Description

Someone built a version of Povray with internal support for automatic subdivision of meshes. See:

http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~xwu/Pov-Sub/

Would like to see this feature added natively to Povray.

237User interfaceDefinite Bug3.70 RC3DeferVery LowGlitch in displaying rendered pixels and percentageTracked on GitHub
0%
Task Description

When rendering in multiple passes (radiosity in my case), the elapsed pixels and percentage, written to terminal
are first displayed like this:
Rendered 126202 of 360000 pixels (35%)
Then on the second stage the output text becomes shorter and you see
Rendered 25344 of 360000 pixels (7%)%)
The contents of the previous status are not erased, so the longer text persists (note the duplicate percentage sign and closing parenthesis). Such a glitch could have more drastic effect in rare cases.

I’m running
Version 3.7.0.RC3 (g++ 4.6.2 x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu)
compiled for the Arch Linux package.

242OtherFeature RequestAllDeferVery LowAlgorithm to fix the so-called shadow line artifactTracked on GitHub
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Task Description

The so-called shadow line artifact (http://wiki.povray.org/content/Knowledgebase:The_Shadow_Line_Artifact) which affects objects with a ‘normal’ statement as well as smooth meshes and heightfields can be really annoying sometimes. Currently the only way to remove it is to make the object shadowless, which isn’t a good solution except in very special cases.

This algorithm could remove the artifact: If the actual normal vector of the object points away from the light source (its dot-product with the light vector is negative) but the perturbed normal points towards it (dot-product positive), then ignore the first shadow-test intersection with the object itself.

There are alternative ways of implementing an equivalent functionality:

- Don’t check the condition (if it’s too difficult to check due to how the code is designed) but always ignore the first intersection with the objects itself. This will work properly with closed surfaces but not with open ones, so it might need to be a feature for the user to turn on with a keyword (similar to eg. ‘double_illuminate’).

- Alternatively, don’t ignore the first intersection, but instead ignore the “opposite side” of the object’s surface (again, possibly only if a keyword has been specified). In other words, if we are rendering the outer side of the object, ignore its inner side when shadow-testing, and vice-versa.

- Perhaps simply add a feature to make surfaces one-sided (similarly to how they can be made so in OpenGL and similar scanline rendering systems). In other words, the inner side of a surface is completely ignored everywhere, making the object virtually invisible from the inside. The advantage of this feature would be that it can have uses other than simply removing the shadow line artifact.

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