New Raytracing Workbench: POV-Ray-Rendering

Info about new community or project announcements, implemented features, classes, modules or APIs. Might get technical!
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jmaustpc
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Re: New Raytracing Workbench: POV-Ray-Rendering

Post by jmaustpc »

The_Raytracers wrote: Fri Oct 01, 2021 3:44 pm
doubters wrote: Sun Sep 12, 2021 8:25 am ...
Sorry for my late reply, I thought I would be noticed via email if someone writes anything in this thread.
That is an option in your forum account settings. Go to your "user control panel", "Board preferences" tab, "edit notification options" in the column on the left....


Assuming you are subscribed to the topic, that happens by default when you create the topic.

Jim
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Re: New Raytracing Workbench: POV-Ray-Rendering

Post by doubters »

The_Raytracers wrote: Fri Oct 01, 2021 3:44 pm
Sorry for my late reply, I thought I would be noticed via email if someone writes anything in this thread. CsatiZoltan had the same issue and reported it on GitHub, fortunately I saw it there :)
It should be fixed now.

But thanks anyway for your bug report!
Thanks for the correction! Everything has earned.
david69
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Re: New Raytracing Workbench: POV-Ray-Rendering

Post by david69 »

giving a glance to this thread, i think we can remove the warning on POV-Ray. POV-Ray is well alive.
andyk
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Re: New Raytracing Workbench: POV-Ray-Rendering

Post by andyk »

The_Raytracers wrote: Tue Jul 14, 2020 4:18 pm ...
Thank you for this great workbench! It makes generating some nice looking images of the work super easy.

My only feedback is that instructions should be more easy to understand regarding where to find the spot to define the povray path.
The_Raytracers
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Re: New Raytracing Workbench: POV-Ray-Rendering

Post by The_Raytracers »

andyk wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 1:20 am My only feedback is that instructions should be more easy to understand regarding where to find the spot to define the povray path.
Thanks for your feedback! I changed the first post of this thread and described where to change the setting. Is it more understandable for you now?
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Varnu01
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Re: New Raytracing Workbench: POV-Ray-Rendering

Post by Varnu01 »

Invite to FreeCAD (and Free CAE) Users Conference 2023

Good Day @The_Raytracers

My name is Varnu Govender, I am the assistant to Dr du Plessis at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

We are organizing the 1st Annual FreeCAD (and Free CAE) Users Conference, which is set to take place in Early 2023.

I have taken interest in your Workbench, and I would love if you could present your work at the conference.

You are welcome to present your workbench in the following manner:
  • Introduction/Overview of your Workbench
  • Run-down on how the workbench operates through the user interface and backend.
  • A tutorial demonstrating the full functionality of the workbench.
  • A showcase of something that has been created/modelled in the workbench.
In addition to this, if you know somebody that might be interested in presenting their work during the conference, please could you refer them to me (@Varnu01.)

I hope to hear from you soon.

Regards
Varnu Govender
FreeCAD (and Free CAE) Users Conference 2023. Register Here

Nikra-DAP FreeCAD Workbench
Zoltan
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Re: New Raytracing Workbench: POV-Ray-Rendering

Post by Zoltan »

Hi,

I love this rendering extension because I don't need to explicitly give the viewpoint: just take the current view of FreeCAD.
On the other hand, I have difficulty in setting the lights. How could I define the direction of the light based on the current view? I tried it programmatically by first creating a light object (e.g. area light) and then overwrite its placement with the current view (which, in general, is different from the view I use for the camera)

Code: Select all

>>> print(Gui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.getCamera())
...
position 15.683624 7.1961765 9.8906727
orientation 0.76154155 0.48235753 0.4328807  1.3786422
...
I guess that "position" is what I need to give for App.Placement.Base. But how to interpret the "orientation" in the output of the getCamera method? I cannot find that description in the Placement wiki.
The_Raytracers
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Re: New Raytracing Workbench: POV-Ray-Rendering

Post by The_Raytracers »

Zoltan wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:19 pm I love this rendering extension because I don't need to explicitly give the viewpoint: just take the current view of FreeCAD.
On the other hand, I have difficulty in setting the lights. How could I define the direction of the light based on the current view? I tried it programmatically by first creating a light object (e.g. area light) and then overwrite its placement with the current view (which, in general, is different from the view I use for the camera)

I guess that "position" is what I need to give for App.Placement.Base. But how to interpret the "orientation" in the output of the getCamera method? I cannot find that description in the Placement wiki.
Hi Zoltan,
I looked into our code to see how we obtain the placement of the camera. The solution is, that there are a couple of methods exactly for this :)

Code: Select all

Gui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.getCameraOrientation()
Gui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.getCameraType()
Gui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.viewPosition()
Gui.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.getCameraNode()
Probably the viewPosition() method is the most important one for you since it returns the Placement object of the camera.

Best regards
The Raytracers
david69
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Re: New Raytracing Workbench: POV-Ray-Rendering

Post by david69 »

as I was translating the GUI under Crowdin, it appears some of the commands for translation are not available on Crowdin.
for ex:
Raytracing>New POV-Ray project>the three commands
and same thing for LuxRender
Zoltan
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Re: New Raytracing Workbench: POV-Ray-Rendering

Post by Zoltan »

The_Raytracers wrote: Thu Jun 02, 2022 4:06 pm
Probably the viewPosition() method is the most important one for you since it returns the Placement object of the camera.
Thanks, that's a useful method for other use cases as well! It works well with the point light and area light. However, when I apply it to a spotlight, it does not point to the correct direction. Could you please test it yourself?

My other question is related to mesh resolution. My surfaces are B-spline surfaces, which are not supported directly (would it be difficult to implement?). Rather, the surfaces are first meshed. How can I change the mesh density? In its current form, it is very crude, leading to an ugly result.

Finally, I would like to know if it is possible to keep showing the surface edges during rendering (cf. other figure attached).
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rendered.png
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