APDL Public Domain 1/APDL_PD1A.iso/raytrace/pov_10/docs/poverr

Text File | 1992-07-26 | 16.2 KB | 405 lines

Persistence of Vision Raytracer
Version 1.0
Run-Time Error Documentation
-------------------------------
By Eduard Schwan & Drew Wells

This document lists all the errors that POV-Ray might generate while
trying to read and render a scene file and attempts to give a better
explanation of why the error occured than the program provides at
run-time.

If a run-time error is not found in this list, it is probably a system
or executable error. These errors are not handled by POV-Ray, rather,
the system takes over and generates the error and aborts the program.
These messages usually look quite different than the normal POV-Ray
error messages and should be easy to recognize. Other than math errors,
they usually indicate that you need to fix somthing with your computer,
rather than a bug in POV-Ray.

MATH ERRORS: POV-Ray renders images using complex mathematical
             routines, and sometimes these calculations exceed the
             capabilities of the computer. When this happens a math
             error is generated that usually reads something like,
             floating point error, or stack underflow.
             Often this can be solved by changing the viewpoint
             slightly or changing parameters slightly.

             DIVIDE BY ZERO: There are two easy ways to generate a
             divide by zero error that you should avoid,

                SCALE BY ZERO: Never scale any component by zero ie.
                   scale <2 0 2> will cause an error To leave a
                   component the same size, scale by 1.
                ROUGHNESS ZERO: The roughness component must be greater
                   than zero. And on some computers must be greater
                   than .001 or it will cause a stack underflow error
                   to be generated.

             STACK UNDERFLOW: The most common cause of this error is
             specifying a roughness value that is too small for your
             computer to handle. It can also be caused by a faulty math
             processor or just math that is too difficult for your
             computer type.

OTHER ERRORS: The general philosophy of POV-Ray is that the user knows
              what they want to do and the program shouldn't prevent
              the user from trying any values for parameters. This
              allows the user to do things that were unanticipated by
              the program's authors and often results in a new and
              exciting way of using the program (like negative colored
              lights) but it can also cause errors like the low
              roughness\stack underflow error. The program could have
              been made more 'safe', but it would have limited its
              power to do so. Consequently, the program allows freedom
              and allows the freedom to make mistakes.

              A good example of this is using height fields as clipping
              objects (see HFCLIP.POV). This was not supposed to be
              possible, but it sometimes works and can be used to
              create exciting effects. When it doesn't work, though, it
              aborts the program with a very cryptic error.

              So, feel free to experiment outside the bounds of what
              the documentation says is possible, but be aware that
              this could cause errors.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Alphabetical List of Errors Generated by POV-Ray
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

'X' expected but 'Y' found instead
----------------------------------
General syntax error. 'Y' was not expected at this place in the scene
file. This often indicates a missing brace.

ALPHA colour register value out of range.
-----------------------------------------
The color index given for alpha was outside the range of color entries
for the image's palette.

Bad Node type at depth N
------------------------
Internal data corruption error in Bezier patch code. This error
shouldn't normally occur.

Bad default file format.  Offending char: (C), val: D.
------------------------------------------------------
This error should never occur with the released executables. If it
does, you may have a corrupted exe file or a virus. If the file is not
corrupted and a virus is not detected, please report this problem to
the POV-Team. If you are compiling POV-Ray on your own computer, this
error means that you have changed the default file format specified in
the source to an incorrect value.

Bad patch type
--------------
Bezier Patch was not within range (1...4)

Can't apply ALPHA to a non colour-mapped image
-----------------------------------------------
A color mapped image is one where the colors used in the image are
stored in a palette. The image data itself is a list of numbers
referencing that palette. GIF images are color mapped, as are most IFF
images. Targa (TGA) and dump images are not color mapped, so ALPHA
cannot be used with them.

Cannot allocate memory for ...
------------------------------
This is a general purpose error that can occur in many places in
POV-Ray.  It just means POV-Ray ran out of memory while trying to build
one of the scene's internal data structures.  Depending on the
particular object it was working on, you may want to increase POV-Ray's
memory allocation, or reduce the size or complexity of the scene. You
can often reduce memory usage easily by removing unecessary include
files, or pasting the needed definitions from the include file straight
into your scene.

Cannot open GIF file FILE_NAME
------------------------------
Cannot open IFF file FILE_NAME
------------------------------
Cannot open Targa file FILE_NAME
--------------------------------
Cannot open dump file FILE_NAME
-------------------------------
Cannot open include file: FILE_NAME
-----------------------------------
Cannot find the file named FILE_NAME in the current directory, or in
the list of directories specified by the +L command line option. Or an
error occured while attempting to open this file. Make sure the file is
in the current directory or one of the listed directories and the file
name is correctly spelled and complete. POV-Ray does not add the
extension to the file name (.GIF, .TGA, .IFF). It must be specified.

Cannot open input file
----------------------
Cannot find the scene file named by the +i command line option in the
current directory, or in the list of directories specified by the +L
command line option. Or an error occured while attempting to open this
file. Make sure the file is in the current directory or one of the
listed directories and the file name is correctly spelled and complete.
POV-Ray does not add the extension to the file name (.POV). It must be
specified.

Colour_Map too long.
--------------------
Color maps may contain no more than MAX_ENTRIES (20) entries

Degenerate triangle on line N.  Please remove.
----------------------------------------------
A 'triangle {}' or a 'smooth_triangle {}' declaration was found to be
invalid on line N of the scene file. This shape will be ignored and not
rendered.

Degenerate triangles were found and are being ignored.
------------------------------------------------------
Some triangle shapes in the scene file were found to be invalid and are
being ignored by the ray tracer. This message will occur only with
triangle {} and smooth_triangle shapes.

ERROR - Containing Index too high
---------------------------------
MAX_CONTAINING_OBJECTS (10) exceeded.

Error - you cannot scale a sphere unevenly
------------------------------------------
Regular Sphere primitives must be scaled evenly.  To do uneven scaling,
use quadric { Ellipsoid } objects.

EVEN SCALE   = scale <2  2 2>

UNEVEN SCALE = scale <7 .1 3>

Error in decimal number
-----------------------
Bad character in number (e.g. 2$3.2 or 89fred0.34 ) This could indicate
a missing space in the scene.

Error opening continue trace output file
----------------------------------------
This error occurs when using the +c command line option. Cannot find
the file specified by the +o command line option in the current
directory, or in the list of directories specified by the +L command
line option. Or an error occured while attempting to open this file.
Make sure the file is in the current directory or one of the listed
directories and the file name is correctly spelled and complete.
POV-Ray does not add the extension to the file name (.GIF, .TGA, .IFF).
It must be specified.

Error opening option file FILE_NAME
-----------------------------------
Cannot find the file named FILE_NAME in the current directory, or in
the list of directories specified by the +L command line option. Or an
error occured while attempting to open this file. Make sure the file is
in the current directory or one of the listed directories and the file
name is correctly spelled and complete. POV-Ray does not add the
extension to the file name (.GIF, .TGA, .IFF). It must be specified.

This error can be caused by stray words on the command line. Any word
on the command line that is not preceded by a +/- option is assumed to
be a file containing command line options.

Error opening output file
-------------------------
Cannot find the file specified by the +o command line option in the
current directory, or in the list of directories specified by the +L
command line option. Or an error occured while attempting to open this
file. Make sure the file is in the current directory or one of the
listed directories and the file name is correctly spelled and complete.
POV-Ray does not add the extension to the file name (.GIF, .TGA, .IFF).
It must be specified.

Error reading aborted data file
-------------------------------
This error occurs when using the +c command line option. POV-Ray had an
error occur while reading the partial image output file specified by
+o.

Expecting a string after INCLUDE
--------------------------------
Syntax for include declaration anticipates a double-quoted filename
string after the word include.

For example:
    #include "filename.inc" == OK!
    #include  filename.inc  == ERROR

Failed to allocate...
---------------------
This is a general purpose error that can occur in many places in
POV-Ray.  It indicates that POV-Ray ran out of memory while trying to
build one of the scene's internal data structures.  Depending on the
particular object it was working on, you may want to increase POV-Ray's
memory allocation, or reduce the size or complexity of the scene.

GIF Image Map Colour out of range
---------------------------------
IFF Image Map Colour out of range
---------------------------------
The color index was outside the image file's palette. This could
indicate a corrupted file.


Identifier 'X' is the wrong type
--------------------------------
Type mismatch syntax error.  The identifier 'X' is not the appropriate
type of ID for this spot. This happens if you put a declared color into
a quadric, for instance.

For example:
   #declare Red = color red 1
   object { quadric { Red } } // This will cause this error

Illegal character in input file, value is XX
--------------------------------------------
Found a bogus half-ASCII character in the source file. These characters
are ignored. It could be a control character left in by an editing
program.

Invalid GIF file format: FILE_NAME
----------------------------------
The file header for FILE_NAME seems not to be a GIF file header. The
file specified may not be a GIF or it could be corrupted.

Invalid IFF file
----------------
The file specified may not be an IFF image or it could be corrupted.

Invalid option: 'OPTSTRING'
---------------------------
The command line option 'OPTSTRING' is not recognized by POV-Ray. This
could be a mistyped character on the command line, the environment
variable POVRAYOPT, or in an option file specified on the command line.

Light source must be defined using new syntax
---------------------------------------------
The keyword "light_source" was found without the accompanying light
source definition in a place in the file that indicates it may be an
old-style light_source definition. See POVRAY.DOC for correct light
source definition.

Need at least one component in a blob
-------------------------------------
There must be at least one sphere element declared in the blob object.
Declare some components in the blob.

Need the order of the Poly
--------------------------
The syntax of poly requires an order be specified before the <coeffs>

No */ closing comment found
---------------------------
Found a /* (open comment), but no matching */ in the scene file.

No colour for value: N
----------------------
The color map does not define a color for the value N. Make sure your
color map contains entries that completely span the range from 0.0 to
1.0.

No end quote for string
------------------------
Hit end of file while reading in quoted string. This indicates a
missing quote (") somewhere.

Not enough memory for colour map.
---------------------------------
See error 'Failed to allocate...'

Only NN option file names are allowed in a command line.
--------------------------------------------------------
POV-Ray only allows one 'option file'on the command line.
MAX_FILE_NAMES (1)

Order of Poly is out of range
-----------------------------
The polynomial order must be between 2 and MAX_ORDER (7).

Out of Memory. ...
-----------------------------------------------------
See error 'Failed to allocate...'

Out of prioqs
-------------
POV-Ray has internally exceeded the NUMBER_OF_PRIOQS (32).

Picture index out of range
--------------------------
This error should not occur, but it could occur if your computer is
having floating point math accuracy problems or a corrupted image file.
It indicates that one of the internal mapping routines (bump, image,
material) tried to get the color of a pixel that was out of the range
of the image. For example, bump_map asked for the X=321, Y=200 point on
a 320 by 200 resolution image.

Premature End Of File reading GIF image
---------------------------------------
POV-Ray found the end-of-file before it expected in a GIF file. File
could be corrupted.

String too long
---------------
No word or number may be longer than MAX_STRING_INDEX (41). Quoted
string (or floating point number) more than this many characters long
found.

The order of a polynomial may not be specified twice
----------------------------------------------------
You can have only one number before the <coeffs> in a 'poly' decl.

Too many constants 'declared'
-----------------------------
The number of declared (#declare) identifiers exceeded
MAX_CONSTANTS(1000)

Too many exits from refractions
-------------------------------
Mismatch between entering and exiting object surfaces, could be
internal data corruption.

Too many library directories specified
--------------------------------------
The number of paths passed on the command line by +L exceeds
MAX_LIBRARIES (10)

Too many nested include files
-----------------------------
POV-Ray can't handle more than MAX_INCLUDE_FILES (10) deep. A nested
include file is an include file in an include file.

Too many nested refracting objects
----------------------------------
MAX_CONTAINING_OBJECTS (10) exceeded. This could happen if you place a
15 glass spheres inside of each other, for example.

Too many symbols. Use +ms### option to raise Max_Symbols.
---------------------------------------------------------
POV-Ray allocates a block of memory for Max_Symbols number of #declared
items. This is normally 500. If this number is too small, use +ms### to
raise the limit of #declared items.

For example:
  povray +ms600 +ifile.pov ...

Undeclared identifier 'X'
-------------------------
Tried to use identifier 'X', but it has not yet been defined by using
#declare. This often indicates a spelling error or typo.


Unexpected end of file
----------------------
POV-Ray was expecting to get more data and found the end of the file
instead. Often caused by missing brace or quote.

Unrecognized output file format 'X'
-----------------------------------
The file format specified by the +f command line option is not one
supprted by POV-Ray.

POV-Ray supports the following output file formats:
  D=Dump, I=IFF, R=Raw, T=Targa.

pvray +fZ -- Would cause this error