3D-Quantization-value

This important parameter affects both the quality and the
speed of the images created or modified by the various 3d-effects.

The value specifies how many pixels are transformed like one
point of the source-image. If this value is left to 1 the image
is transformed pixel by pixel.


Higher values cause the approximation of the image by quadrangles
of the size specified by the 3D-Quantization-value.
E.g., after specifiying a value of 3 the image is approximated
by quadrangles of the size 3x3. The color of every quadrangle is
computed from the 9 original pixel using an interpolation method.
The result may look very bad but is displayed almost in realtime
at fast machines.
The main purpose of quantization values higher than 1 is to speed
up the generation of previews while adjusting the many parameters.

Another advantage may be the fact that the amount of memory
required for the 3d-calculations decreases with increasing
quantization-values at a power of 2. That means at a quantization
value of 2 you need only 25 percent of the memory required
for the full computation - but the image-quality will be almost the
same.


Smaller values cause the creation of more points using another
interpolation method. This may be necessary after combining
several 3D-effects which cause very large deformations.
In this case a qantization value of 0.5 will cause the interpotion
of every pixel by four quadrangles. This requires much more memory
and computation time but will produce images at very high quality.