Richard, I am keen to learn,
I was doing a lot of the data moving/manipulation by have as by
VB skills are only in thier infant stage, I had thought of running a COON's Patch on all the Z heights for a given X-axis, this whould help elminate some of the colour spiking due to shading issues..
also I have thought of using less colours (wide brush type technique)
I have a friend who does some green screen and movie effects, he also does a bit of CGI, When I mentioned to him my aim he got really excited... but to date I have not heard from him>>>
I wonder if you couldn't scan an object knowing the rules of relection and shading place a curved line on a portion of the SCOURCE FILE this would not give the radius of the object and the shading would help define the shape (have a a look at the attached PIC)
<EDIT>
Sorry the lines are not that clear I selected RED as a colour but it has been displayed as BROWN .... Not happy, Jan!