LDView povray export

[Michael Horvath]

Here are some things I suggest for LDView's povray export. They all make things easier when using an external file to set variables, which I do often. I.e. I will create a "wrapper" file that is used in common by several scenes.

1. Precede all variable declarations with #IFNDEF. For instance:

Change this

Code:

#declare LDXQual = 3;

To this

Code:

#ifndef (LDXQual) #declare LDXQual = 3; #end

2. Check the variable's value when disabling lights and camera. For instance:

Change this

Code:

// Camera
#ifndef (LDXSkipCamera)
camera {
    #declare LDXCamAspect = image_width/image_height;
    location LDXCameraLoc
    sky LDXCameraSky
    right LDXCamAspect * < -1,0,0 >
    look_at LDXCameraLookAt
    angle 77.011589
}
#end

To this

Code:

// Camera
#ifndef (LDXSkipCamera) #declare LDXSkipCamera = false; #end

#if (LDXSkipCamera = false)
camera {
    #declare LDXCamAspect = image_width/image_height;
    location LDXCameraLoc
    sky LDXCameraSky
    right LDXCamAspect * < -1,0,0 >
    look_at LDXCameraLookAt
    angle 77.011589
}
#end

3. Create a variable to enable/disable the background. For instance:

Code:

#if (LDXShowBackground = true) background { color rgb <LDXBgR,LDXBgG,LDXBgB> } #end

4. Lastly, if you could do the camera calculations inside the POV file instead of "hardcoding" the values, that would be great. For instance, start with latitude, longitude and radius to generate the camera location; then translate the camera based on the center of the bounding box. (I'm not 100% sure exactly what LDView does to output the camera.)


Thank you!!