Re: line corners with terminals for vector graphics

[Daniel J S. <dan...@ie...>]

Mojca Miklavec wrote:
> On 2/5/06, Daniel J Sebald <dan...@ie...> wrote:
> 
> 
> Didn't try it now, but I guess it only draws solid polygons and
> simulates 3D. But I was asking for the what you describe as "to using
> elements that have shading within as opposed to having the monocolored
> elements". This is not that difficult to do in PostScript/PSTricks and
> could be also done in ConTeXt (based on metapost). PDF supports that
> as well, but might not be trivial with the current driver (don't know
> how it works).

It probably isn't a difficult thing to write a routine that does that.  I think Ethan's idea may have been to use such a routine that already exists in library and then utilize that somehow.  The difficult thing with gnuplot is usually figuring out a nice generic method that all terminals can use.

> With quite some effort, one could do something like "ray-tracing" (I
> don't know how it's called) and determine the color for each pixel
> separately by determining the normal vector to the surface in the
> point to which this pixel "corresponds to" (sorry, I guess that nobody
> understands that sentence).

Well, my understanding is that ray tracing is a very computationally intensive method of shading that mimicks real-world objects by bouncing light rays, either from some light source or the reverse direction.  I think the best that could be achieved with gnuplot might be some kind of faux lighting assuming the light source is at an infinite point in space.  But really, to have shading commands and such in gnuplot doesn't seem approrpriate.

Dan