Re: povexport of vpython materials

Great! We'll take a look. Thanks.

Bruce Sherwood

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 8:04 AM, Jasper Stolte <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ok, I had some time just now, so I added the finish and color tags and put
> in an extra example file which shows how to use them. Please see if you
> think this is useful. It still doesn't do materials, interiors, subplanes
> and other things I stumbled across in the pov help. But already I think this
> helps in making renderings of the most common materials.
>
> Kind regards,
> Jasper
>
>
> On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Jasper Stolte <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>>
>> Absolutely, it's fairly straight forward to add a pov_finish and pov_color
>> tags in a way similar to the pov_texture. I can add those easily enough.
>> It'll add to the code repetition in all the export_ functions though. I
>> think some code refactoring would make the module cleaner, more transparent.
>> But who has the time for that, right?
>>
>> Jasper
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 4:20 AM, Bruce Sherwood <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> No, you're probably not missing anything. I'll comment that Ruth
>>> Chabay is currently deeply involved in an unrelated project, so it's
>>> not clear when she will work on updating povexport. Moreover, her main
>>> priorities are just dealing with the objects currently not supported,
>>> especially faces, text, and extrusion.
>>>
>>> Note however that povexport is not a very large program, and written
>>> in pure Python, so if you have a clear vision of how it should be
>>> improved to deal with the attributes of interest to you, I encourage
>>> you to consider improving povexport yourself.
>>>
>>> Bruce Sherwood
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 5:16 AM, Jasper Stolte <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Bruce, thank you for your prompt reply.
>>> >
>>> > Indeed, I noticed the support for (among others) woods and metals
>>> > through
>>> > the .inc files. However, I believe these materials are purely texture
>>> > based.
>>> > It seems to me povexport only does pov_texture, as I cannot find
>>> > something
>>> > for pov_finish or pov_color. For example, it is not quite clear to me
>>> > why we
>>> > would include colors.inc, since I dont think you can use its color
>>> > definitions through the pov_texture variable anyway. Similarly, as far
>>> > as I
>>> > can see, from the metals.inc only the textures can be used, not the
>>> > colors
>>> > or the finishes. The wood example only works because wood only requires
>>> > texture, and no finish or color. There is no example that uses the
>>> > colors/finishes from the metals.inc or colors.inc macros, and as far as
>>> > I
>>> > can see they cannot be used without modifying povexport to support them
>>> > first.
>>> >
>>> > Or maybe I am just completely missing something.. :)
>>> > Kind regards,
>>> >
>>> > Jasper
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 10:27 PM, Bruce Sherwood
>>> > <[email protected]>
>>> > wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> There is some support for materials, as indicated in the header to the
>>> >> 2009 version of povexport, available in the contributed section of
>>> >> vpython.org:
>>> >>
>>> >> This module exports a VPython scene as POV-Ray scene description code.
>>> >> Lights and camera location from the current visual scene are included.
>>> >> Optionally, you may specify a list of include files,
>>> >>   and pov textures for objects.
>>> >> For an example of its use, see 'povexample.py'.
>>> >> Currently convex, faces, and points objects are not exported.
>>> >> Further documentation is found at the start of the file.
>>> >>
>>> >> Also see the example program povexample_wood.py, which is included in
>>> >> the 2009 povexport package.
>>> >>
>>> >> The relatively recent objects "text" and "extrusion" are not handled
>>> >> by povexport. Ruth Chabay, the originator of povexport, intends to
>>> >> bring povexport up to date. The "create_faces()" method for extrusion
>>> >> objects was created to make it feasible to export an extrusion to
>>> >> povexport (and the text object creates an extrusion, so it too should
>>> >> prove to be exportable).
>>> >>
>>> >> Bruce Sherwood
>>> >>
>>> >> On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 6:28 AM, Jasper Stolte
>>> >> <[email protected]>
>>> >> wrote:
>>> >> > Hi guys,
>>> >> >
>>> >> > It's been a few years since I used vpython, but I'm happy to see
>>> >> > there
>>> >> > is
>>> >> > still activity and development of this useful tool. For my new
>>> >> > project
>>> >> > I'm
>>> >> > using povexport, which exports the scenes nicely into pov-ray
>>> >> > format.
>>> >> > However when I look at the resulting pictures the material
>>> >> > information
>>> >> > seems
>>> >> > lost. Everything ends up looking like I selected materials.diffuse
>>> >> > for
>>> >> > it.
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Digging into the documentation I found that pov-ray uses a 'finish'
>>> >> > tag
>>> >> > to
>>> >> > specify things such as reflectivity etc. Tweaking the finish tag
>>> >> > parameters
>>> >> > manually I quickly rendered something which was looking at least
>>> >> > acceptable.
>>> >> > Now my question is whether you guys have experience mapping the
>>> >> > vpython
>>> >> > materials to the pov-ray finish tag, and if you would be willing to
>>> >> > share
>>> >> > parameters? Maybe someone has even started improving the povexport
>>> >> > module to
>>> >> > include the finish tag?
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Kind regards,
>>> >> > Jasper

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What Every C/C++ and Fortran developer Should Know!
Read this article and learn how Intel has extended the reach of its 
next-generation tools to help Windows* and Linux* C/C++ and Fortran 
developers boost performance applications - including clusters. 
http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-dev2devmay