Povsphere.

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12518

Thought I would share this cool bitmap to POV Sphere photoshop plugin that I sort of stubbled across while looking for something completely different. lol

http://photoshop.msk.ru/povsphere/

Note that you have to have povray or a program that can open .pov files. I just installed povray a few minutes ago. Have little knowledge or understanding of 3D but delving into it some (not promising anything since I'm lazy; lol). See attached for the pov file created by this cool plugin.

Rod · **Joined:** May 16, 2010 **Posts:** 14709 **Location:** USA

Thanks Lyle. That is pretty cool looking.

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12518

OK; clueless on how to use povray and it took me over 30 minutes to figure out how to save a PNG (and don't ask how long to figure out how to save transparent background; lol). Heard the new version of povray will allow PNG by default, but doesn't appear available yet for Windows. Anyway, still having fun with this cool toy uh, er, plugin. lol

Don't click unless you have high bandwidth (7MBytes).

Rod · **Joined:** May 16, 2010 **Posts:** 14709 **Location:** USA

Have you tried transparencies yet?
I loaded one of Wilbur and got a yellow Wilbur with black bg.

Also i assumed the plug-in would allow you some settings...nope.
I suppose you could fix everything in the pov file before rendering but i have no idea how to use it either. :lol

Have to go through the sample scripts and see how they are built.

It is a fun toy though Lyle, and thanks for sharing it.

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12518

Yeah; doesn't work with transparent background unfortunately so you will have to deleted the dots if you want (fat chance that I would ever do this; lol). At least I can export the dots with a transparent background in povray (see my earlier rant). lol

I need to figure out how to texture the balls; would be cool to add a wood texture. I'm lessor then an uneducated novice w.r.t. 3D apps unfortunately.

Rod · **Joined:** May 16, 2010 **Posts:** 14709 **Location:** USA

lylejk wrote:

Yeah; doesn't work with transparent background unfortunately so you will have to deleted the dots if you want (fat chance that I would ever do this; lol). At least I can export the dots with a transparent background in povray (see my earlier rant). lol

I need to figure out how to texture the balls; would be cool to add a wood texture. I'm lessor then an uneducated novice w.r.t. 3D apps unfortunately.

I would think a wood texture overlay on top of the actual image then a merge visible layers, before using povsphere should work.
Or do you mean making them with the pov script?

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12518

I mean to texturize the balls in povray itself Rod. I browsed through a few of povray's examples and saw some textures that I really like but am clueless as to apply the texture to the balls in povray. I really am not in the mood to learn 3D but I know eventually I will have to. I know there's more user friendly software out there too so might one day figure all this 3D stuff out but I'm a pixel pusher; not a vector/3D guy.

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12518

Lots of lessons learned from my past marble days applied here. I did add the povray file so that you can see the tweaks that I did. Now I can really compact the marbles (a near lifetime goal. I know; I really need to get out sometime. lol).

Gms9810 · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 6:02 pm **(#9)**

Similar to gimpressionist.

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12518

Except they are uberpacked GMS. Can't do this with GIMPressionist unfortunately.

Erisian · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 8:39 pm **(#11)**

You could create some neat bubblewrap with this. :hehe

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12518

Yup; played with other objects like box, torus, and super ellipsoid as well (not showing), but again, a 3D guy I'm not. I think it was you that I told that I would delve into the 3D world one day and this cool plugin pushed me that way. Way too much for a feeble guy like me to learn though; coder I'm not and POVRay really wants you to be one.

Erisian · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 5:21 pm **(#13)**

POVRay is painful. I prefer the Dentist!

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12518

Yeah; hate to agree with your Erisian. lol

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12518

What the hey; one more (yup it is a binge; lol).

ref: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1281259

edit: Forgot to say that povsphere runs perfectly inside GIMP via. PSPI.

paynekj · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:04 am **(#16)**

This looks kind of fun. I'll feed your .pov files into POVRay later, but the first thing I'd try is changing the camera location:

Code: Select all

camera {location <0, 0, camera_height> angle (2.0*camera_angle) look_at <0, 0, 0>}

To be looking from off centre, change the X coordinate:

Code: Select all

camera {location <-10, 0, camera_height> angle (2.0*camera_angle) look_at <0, 0, 0>}

Oh, and it would be possible to generate the .pov files from a Python script within GIMP, the basic problem is sampling the image to get the rgb values at each coordinate.

Kevin

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12518

I bet you G'MIC can do this Kevin; just not a coder though. Also, I do change the height value since the plugin sets the value too small imo which distorts the orbs at the edges. I've also played with the script adding #include glass.inc and created a few cool custom presets (not any of my examples here though; lol) on a test output (one for metal; another for glass; came out reall cool imo). Still in my infancy with all this 3D stuff though.

paynekj · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 5:24 pm **(#18)**

Attachment:

pov-sphere.jpg [ 141.54 KiB | Viewed 1250 times ]

I've had a quick go at getting the colours at various points in script-fu and so far so good. Playing with your example, it occurs to me that it might also be fun to alter the Z coordinate based on some value - maybe the luminance, so that darker spheres are moved backwards and lighter ones forwards.

Kevin

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12518

That's cool Kevin; have no idea yet how to do this. I actually have played around with finish settings but haven't delved into placement which is my next goal if I can get off my lazy behind to learn. What would be cool is have the orb size adapt by say saturation or value but this plugin doesn't seam to give you the ability to dynamically do this unfortunatly. I did an internet search, but have not run into any other image to povray filters but if you or anybody else here know of any, that would be cool.

Erisian · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 5:50 pm **(#20)**

I've just remembered - this reminds me of Gimpressionist's Marble Madness filter.