[Haskell-cafe] announce: Glome.hs-0.3 (Haskell raytracer)

[Andrew Coppin]

Jon Harrop wrote:
> On Thursday 24 April 2008 20:29:50 Andrew Coppin wrote:
>   
>> 2. It's the only program I've seen that can render *real* curves, not
>> fake trickery with triangle meshes.
>>     
>
> What you called "fake trickery with triangle meshes" is the core of all modern 
> computer graphics. Focussing on ray tracing instead of that is rather missing 
> the point, IMHO.
>   

Well, that rather depends on what your "point" is, doesn't it?

Personally, I don't see the point in rendering a couple of million 
mathematically flat surfaces, and then trying to blur the edges to give 
the false illusion of a curved surface - when you could just, you know, 
render a real curved surface. Sure, surface normal tricks can make 
lighting and reflections look almost correct, but they won't fix profile 
views, shadows and self-shadows, intersections, or any of the other 
artifacts caused by using triangles.

But anyway, this is wandering off-topic. Suffice it to say, for my 
humble little hobby graphics, I intend to stick to ray tracing. If you 
disagree, feel free to use something else for your stuff. :-)