Re: [Visualpython-users] povexport of vpython materials

[Bruce S. <Bru...@nc...>]

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 <jas...@gm...> 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