Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!hull From: hull@hao.ucar.edu (Howard Hull) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: IFF for 3D packages? Message-ID: <994@hao.ucar.edu> Date: Sat, 5-Dec-87 17:43:32 EST Article-I.D.: hao.994 Posted: Sat Dec 5 17:43:32 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 10-Dec-87 20:02:44 EST References: <4VfpM8y00WAKzW005j@andrew.cmu.edu> <4592@well.UUCP> <1215@sugar.UUCP> Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO Lines: 23 Summary: should support any mathematical object In article <1215@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > Any 3d IFF format should at least support objects that are not polygons. "At least" is hardly a strong enough objection. A mathematical function is something a computer should find rather straightforward to manage. Perhaps it takes a lot of cycles to render some of them, but I wouldn't want to find, for instance, that the Mandelbrot set was _excluded_ as a terrain-like object. > > I was terribly disappointed to learn that Sculpt-3d didn't support spheres > as atomic objects. Instead of one of the easiest objects to trace, they're > now among the hardest. Pretty strange, considering Eric Graham's original > juggler was entirely built from spheres. With 68020s and 68881s becoming more and more prevalent in single-user computers, some things that were outrageously slow a few years ago are now within tolerable limits. Tomorrow it will be even better... > -- > -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter > -- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*. Howard Hull "Scientific American October 1987 - "The next revolution in computers, the subject of this issue, will see power increase tenfold in 10 years while networks and advanced interfaces transform computing into a universal intellectual utility." Remember, IFF is an interface!