RE:LANG: Fractals in VRML 1.0

Oliver Jowett ([email protected])
Thu, 29 Jun 1995 14:51:52 +1200 (NZST)


On Sun, 25 Jun 1995, MR LEEMON C BAIRD III wrote:
> Oliver Jowett [[email protected]] wrote:
> > I _don't_ like the idea of modifying Group or Separator. They're
> far more
> > logical delineations than physical ones; I'd rather modify LOD or
> > introduce a new node.
>
> I agree. It would be better to add the bounding box and center fields
> to just the LOD node, rather than to the nodes I had suggested.

LOD already has a center field. I agree with the bboxSize (?) field though.

> branches, or even turn into a simple green sphere. If we did want to
> define a new fractal node, we'd want it to behave exactly like LOD
> anyway.
>
> > A browser could easily arbitrarily decid> to always render LODs at
> the
> > highest detail level (not a wonderful choice, but valid).
>
> Yes, that would be disastrous for fractals. It would also be bad for
> some non-fractal scenes. Perhaps the spec should require that a
> browser not esnder at a higher resolution than LOD calls for. On the

Um. Maybe. The distinction I was thinking of really was between defining
an object (fractal node of some type) and defining levels of detail for
esndering optimization (LOD, LevelOfDetail). Yes, maybe it is an
unnece> behavior of LOD further, and it has the advantage that since the browser
knows that it's dealing with a recursive structure which has potentially
infinite detail, it can handle LOD however it wants while still correctly
handling the fractal case. I gui> with DEF/USE the browser could detect
escursion itself, but that seems like the all-too-common case of software
compensating for bugs in other software.

--
Oliver Jowett                         Student, programmer-at-large,
[email protected]   and generally nice guy.. ;-)
--------Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.-------