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An Introduction

Welcome to the Persistence Of Vision Raytracer™ on-line documentation repository.

This repository is not intended to replace or supplement the documentation set currently being distributed with the POV-Ray™ application at this time. It is the beginning of a project to migrate the current documentation creation process to a MediaWiki solution, so if you're looking for the most up to date documentation, you've found it! The table of contents below is arranged the same as the on-line view found on the main POV-Ray main site. Sorry the section numbers appear in this table of contents ONLY, not the content.

Hint: Keep this page open in it's own tab. Use browser find feature to search for a section number, then open the link in a new tab.

Quick Jump

Introduction to POV-Ray

1.1 Introduction

1.1.1 Program Description

1.1.2 What is Ray-Tracing?

1.1.3 What is POV-Ray?

1.1.4 Features

1.1.4.1 Changes and New Features Summary

1.1.5 The Early History of POV-Ray

1.1.5.1 The Original Creation Message

1.1.5.2 The Name

1.1.5.3 A Historic 'Version History'

1.1.6 How Do I Begin?

1.1.7 Notation and Basic Assumptions

1.2 Getting Started

1.2.1 Our First Image

1.2.1.1 Understanding POV-Ray's Coordinate System

1.2.1.2 Adding Standard Include Files

1.2.1.3 Adding a Camera

1.2.1.4 Describing an Object

1.2.1.5 Adding Texture to an Object

1.2.1.6 Defining a Light Source

1.2.2 Basic Shapes

1.2.2.1 Box Object

1.2.2.2 Cone Object

1.2.2.3 Cylinder Object

1.2.2.4 Plane Object

1.2.2.5 Torus Object

1.2.3 CSG Objects

1.2.3.1 What is CSG?

1.2.3.2 CSG Union

1.2.3.3 CSG Intersection

1.2.3.4 CSG Difference

1.2.3.5 CSG Merge

1.2.3.6 CSG Pitfalls

1.2.3.6.1 Co-incident Surfaces

1.2.4 The Light Source

1.2.4.1 The Pointlight Source

1.2.4.2 The Spotlight Source

1.2.4.3 The Cylindrical Light Source

1.2.4.4 The Area Light Source

1.2.4.5 The Ambient Light Source

1.2.4.6 Light Source Specials

1.2.4.6.1 Using Shadowless Lights

1.2.4.6.2 Assigning an Object to a Light Source

1.2.4.6.3 Using Light Fading

1.2.5 Simple Texture Options

1.2.5.1 Surface Finishes

1.2.5.2 Adding Bumpiness

1.2.5.3 Creating Color Patterns

1.2.5.4 Pre-defined Textures

1.2.6 Using the Camera

1.2.6.1 Using Focal Blur

1.2.7 POV-Ray Coordinate System

1.2.7.1 Transformations

1.2.7.1.1 Translate

1.2.7.1.2 Scale

1.2.7.1.3 Rotate

1.2.7.1.4 Matrix

1.2.7.2 Transformation Order

1.2.7.3 Inverse Transform

1.2.7.4 Transform Identifiers

1.2.7.5 Transforming Textures and Objects

1.2.8 Setting POV-Ray Options

1.2.8.1 Command Line Switches

1.2.8.2 Using INI Files

1.2.8.3 Using the POVINI Environment Variable

1.3 Advanced Features

1.3.1 Spline Based Shapes

1.3.1.1 Lathe Object

1.3.1.1.1 Understanding The Concept of Splines

1.3.1.2 Surface of Revolution Object

1.3.1.3 Prism Object

1.3.1.3.1 Teaching An Old Spline New Tricks

1.3.1.3.2 Smooth Transitions

1.3.1.3.3 Multiple Sub-Shapes

1.3.1.3.4 Conic Sweeps And The Tapering Effect

1.3.1.4 Sphere Sweep Object

1.3.1.5 Bicubic Patch Object

1.3.1.6 Text Object

1.3.2 Polygon Based Shapes

1.3.2.1 Mesh Object

1.3.2.2 Mesh2 Object

1.3.2.2.1 Smooth triangles and mesh2

1.3.2.2.2 UV mapping and mesh2

1.3.2.2.3 A separate texture per triangle

1.3.2.3 Polygon Object

1.3.3 Other Shapes

1.3.3.1 Blob Object

1.3.3.1.1 Component Types and Other New Features

1.3.3.1.2 Complex Blob Constructs and Negative Strength

1.3.3.2 Height Field Object

1.3.3.3 Isosurface Object

1.3.3.3.1 Simple functions

1.3.3.3.2 Several surfaces

1.3.3.3.3 Non-linear functions

1.3.3.3.4 Specifying functions

1.3.3.3.5 Internal functions

1.3.3.3.6 Combining isosurface functions

1.3.3.3.7 Noise and pigment functions

1.3.3.3.8 Conditional directives and loops

1.3.3.3.9 Transformations on functions

1.3.3.3.10 Improving Isosurface Speed

1.3.3.4 Poly Object

1.3.3.4.1 Creating the polynomial function

1.3.3.4.2 Writing the polynomial vector

1.3.3.5 Superquadric Ellipsoid Object

1.3.4 Gamma Handling

1.3.4.1 Setting Up Your Display

1.3.4.2 Setting Up POV-Ray

1.3.4.3 Gamma in Output Images

1.3.4.4 Gamma in Input Images

1.3.4.5 Gamma in Literal Colors

1.3.5 Advanced Texture Options

1.3.5.1 Pigments

1.3.5.1.1 Using Color List Pigments

1.3.5.1.2 Using Pigment and Patterns

1.3.5.1.3 Using Pattern Modifiers

1.3.5.1.4 Using Transparent Pigments and Layered Textures

1.3.5.1.5 Using Pigment Maps

1.3.5.2 Normals

1.3.5.2.1 Using Basic Normal Modifiers

1.3.5.2.2 Blending Normals

1.3.5.2.3 Slope Map Tutorial

1.3.5.2.3.1 Slopes, what are they?

1.3.5.2.3.2 Syntax of a slope map

1.3.5.2.3.3 Examples of slope maps

1.3.5.3 Finishes

1.3.5.3.1 Using Ambient

1.3.5.3.2 Using Emission

1.3.5.3.3 Using Surface Highlights

1.3.5.3.4 Using Reflection, Metallic and Metallic

1.3.5.3.5 Using Iridescence

1.3.5.4 Working With Pigment Maps

1.3.5.5 Working With Normal Maps

1.3.5.6 Working With Texture Maps

1.3.5.7 Working With List Textures

1.3.5.8 What About Tiles?

1.3.5.9 Average Function

1.3.5.10 Working With Layered Textures

1.3.5.10.1 Declaring Layered Textures

1.3.5.10.2 Another Layered Textures Example

1.3.5.11 When All Else Fails: Material Maps

1.3.5.12 Limitations Of Special Textures

1.3.6 Using Atmospheric Effects

1.3.6.1 The Background

1.3.6.2 The Sky Sphere

1.3.6.2.1 Creating a Sky with a Color Gradient

1.3.6.2.2 Adding the Sun

1.3.6.2.3 Adding Some Clouds

1.3.6.3 The Fog

1.3.6.3.1 A Constant Fog

1.3.6.3.2 Setting a Minimum Translucency

1.3.6.3.3 Creating a Filtering Fog

1.3.6.3.4 Adding Some Turbulence to the Fog

1.3.6.3.5 Using Ground Fog

1.3.6.3.6 Using Multiple Layers of Fog

1.3.6.3.7 Fog and Hollow Objects

1.3.6.4 The Rainbow

1.3.6.4.1 Starting With a Simple Rainbow

1.3.6.4.2 Increasing the Rainbow's Translucency

1.3.6.4.3 Using a Rainbow Arc

1.3.7 Simple Media Tutorial

1.3.7.1 Types of media

1.3.7.2 Some media concepts

1.3.7.3 Simple media examples

1.3.7.3.1 Emitting media

1.3.7.3.2 Absorbing media

1.3.7.3.3 Scattering media

1.3.7.4 Multiple medias inside the same object

1.3.7.5 Media and transformations

1.3.7.6 A more advanced example of scattering media

1.3.7.7 Media and photons

1.3.8 Radiosity

1.3.8.1 Introduction

1.3.8.2 Radiosity with conventional lighting

1.3.8.3 Radiosity without conventional lighting

1.3.8.4 Normals and Radiosity

1.3.8.5 Performance considerations

1.3.9 Making Animations

1.3.9.1 The Clock Variable: Key To It All

1.3.9.2 Clock Dependant Variables And Multi-Stage Animations

1.3.9.3 The Phase Keyword

1.3.9.4 Do Not Use Jitter Or Crand

1.3.9.5 INI File Settings

1.3.10 While-loop tutorial

1.3.10.1 What a while-loop is and what it is not

1.3.10.2 How does a single while-loop work?

1.3.10.3 How do I make a while-loop?

1.3.10.4 What is a condition and how do I make one?

1.3.10.5 What about loop types other than simple for-loops?

1.3.10.6 What about nested loops?

1.3.10.7 Mixed-type nested loops

1.3.10.8 Other things to note

1.3.11 SDL tutorial: A raytracer

1.3.11.1 Introduction

1.3.11.2 The idea and the code

1.3.11.3 Short introduction to raytracing

1.3.11.4 Global settings

1.3.11.5 Scene definition

1.3.11.6 Initializing the raytracer

1.3.11.7 Ray-sphere intersection

1.3.11.7.1 Inner workings of a #macro

1.3.11.7.2 The ray-sphere intersection macro

1.3.11.8 The Trace macro

1.3.11.8.1 Calculating the closest intersection

1.3.11.8.2 If the ray doesn't hit anything

1.3.11.8.3 Initializing color calculations

1.3.11.8.4 Going through the light sources

1.3.11.8.5 Shadow test

1.3.11.8.6 Diffuse lighting

1.3.11.8.7 Specular lighting

1.3.11.8.8 Reflection Calculation

1.3.11.9 Calculating the image

1.3.11.10 Creating the colored mesh

1.3.11.10.1 The structure of the mesh

1.3.11.10.2 Creating the mesh

1.3.11.10.3 Creating the vertex points

1.3.11.10.4 Creating the textures

1.3.11.10.5 Creating the triangles

1.3.11.11 The Camera-setup

1.4 Questions and Tips

1.5 Appendices

1.5.1 POV-Ray User License

1.5.2 Support Library Licenses

1.5.2.1 OpenEXR

1.5.3 Citing POV-Ray in Academic Publications

1.5.4 The POV-Team

1.5.4.1 Contacting the Authors

1.5.4.2 POV-Ray 3.6 Development

1.5.5 What to do if you don't have POV-Ray

1.5.5.1 Which Version of POV-Ray should you use?

1.5.5.1.1 Microsoft Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP

1.5.5.1.2 Linux for Intel x86

1.5.5.1.3 Apple Macintosh

1.5.5.1.4 Generic Unix

1.5.5.1.5 All Versions

1.5.5.2 Where to Find POV-Ray Files

1.5.5.2.1 World Wide Website www.povray.org

1.5.5.2.2 Books, Magazines and CD-ROMs

1.5.6 Suggested Reading

POV-Ray Reference

2.1 Introduction

2.1.1 Notation and Basic Assumptions

2.1.2 Command-line Options

2.1.2.1 Animation Options

2.1.2.1.1 External Animation Loop

2.1.2.1.2 Internal Animation Loop

2.1.2.1.3 Subsets of Animation Frames

2.1.2.1.4 Cyclic Animation

2.1.2.1.5 Field Rendering

2.1.2.1.6 Real-Time Raytracing

2.1.2.1.6.1 Clockless Animation

2.1.2.1.6.2 Video Capture

2.1.2.1.6.3 Options

2.1.2.1.6.4 Windows Setup

2.1.2.2 General Output Options

2.1.2.2.1 Height and Width of Output

2.1.2.2.2 Partial Output Options

2.1.2.2.3 Interrupting Options

2.1.2.2.4 Resuming Options

2.1.2.3 Display Output Options

2.1.2.3.1 Display Hardware Settings

2.1.2.3.2 Setting your Display Gamma

2.1.2.3.3 Display Related Settings

2.1.2.3.4 Mosaic Preview

2.1.2.4 File Output Options

2.1.2.4.1 Output File Type

2.1.2.4.2 Output File Name

2.1.2.4.3 CPU Utilization Histogram

2.1.2.4.4 File Name

2.1.2.4.5 Grid Size

2.1.2.5 Scene Parsing Options

2.1.2.5.1 Constant

2.1.2.5.2 Input File Name

2.1.2.5.3 Include File Name

2.1.2.5.4 Library Paths

2.1.2.5.5 Language Version

2.1.2.6 Shell-out to Operating System

2.1.2.6.1 String Substitution in Shell Commands

2.1.2.6.2 Shell Command Sequencing

2.1.2.6.3 Shell Command Return Actions

2.1.2.7 Text Output

2.1.2.7.1 Text Streams

2.1.2.7.2 Console Text Output

2.1.2.7.3 Directing Text Streams to Files

2.1.2.7.4 Warning Level

2.1.2.7.5 Help Screen Switches

2.1.2.8 Tracing Options

2.1.2.8.1 Symmetric MultiProcessing

2.1.2.8.2 Render Block Size

2.1.2.8.2.1 Render Pattern

2.1.2.8.2.2 Render Block Step

2.1.2.8.3 Quality Settings

2.1.2.8.4 Automatic Bounding Control

2.1.2.8.5 Removing User Bounding

2.1.2.8.6 BSP Bounding

2.1.2.8.7 Anti-Aliasing Options

2.1.2.8.8 Radiosity Options

2.1.2.8.8.1 Radiosity High Reproducibility

2.1.2.8.8.2 Radiosity Load and Save

2.1.2.8.8.3 Radiosity Vain Pretrace

2.2 Scene Description Language

2.2.1 Language Basics

2.2.1.1 Identifiers and Keywords

2.2.1.2 Comments

2.2.1.3 Float Expressions

2.2.1.3.1 Literals

2.2.1.3.2 Identifiers

2.2.1.3.3 Operators

2.2.1.3.4 Functions

2.2.1.3.5 Built-in Constants

2.2.1.3.6 Built-in Variables

2.2.1.4 Vector Expressions

2.2.1.4.1 Literals

2.2.1.4.2 Identifiers

2.2.1.4.3 Operators

2.2.1.4.4 Operator Promotion

2.2.1.4.5 Functions

2.2.1.4.6 Built-in Constants

2.2.1.5 Specifying Colors

2.2.1.5.1 Color Vectors

2.2.1.5.2 Color Keywords

2.2.1.5.3 Color Identifiers

2.2.1.5.4 Color Operators

2.2.1.5.5 Common Color Pitfalls

2.2.1.6 User-Defined Functions

2.2.1.6.1 Sum and Product functions

2.2.1.6.2 Functions and Macros

2.2.1.6.3 Declaring User-Defined Float Functions

2.2.1.6.4 Declaring User-Defined Vector Functions

2.2.1.6.5 Declaring User-Defined Color Functions

2.2.1.6.6 Internal Pre-Defined Functions

2.2.1.7 Strings

2.2.1.7.1 String Literals

2.2.1.7.2 String Identifiers

2.2.1.7.3 String Relational Operators

2.2.1.7.4 String Functions

2.2.1.7.5 Built-in Variables

2.2.1.8 Array Identifiers

2.2.1.8.1 Declaring Arrays

2.2.1.8.2 Array Initializers

2.2.1.9 Spline Identifiers

2.2.1.9.1 Splines and Macros

2.2.2 Language Directives

2.2.2.1 Include Files and the #include Directive

2.2.2.2 The #declare and #local Directives

2.2.2.2.1 Declaring identifiers

2.2.2.2.2 #declare vs. #local

2.2.2.2.3 Identifier Name Collisions

2.2.2.2.4 Destroying Identifiers with #undef

2.2.2.2.5 Deprecation Support

2.2.2.3 File I/O Directives

2.2.2.3.1 The #fopen Directive

2.2.2.3.2 The #fclose Directive

2.2.2.3.3 The #read Directive

2.2.2.3.4 The #write Directive

2.2.2.4 The #default Directive

2.2.2.5 The #version Directive

2.2.2.6 Conditional Directives

2.2.2.6.1 The #if...#else...#end Directives

2.2.2.6.2 The #ifdef and #ifndef Directives

2.2.2.6.3 The #for Directive

2.2.2.6.4 The #switch, #case, #range and #break Directives

2.2.2.6.5 The #while...#end Directive

2.2.2.7 User Message Directives

2.2.2.7.1 Text Message Streams

2.2.2.7.2 Text Formatting

2.2.2.8 User Defined Macros

2.2.2.8.1 The #macro Directive

2.2.2.8.2 Invoking Macros

2.2.2.8.3 Are POV-Ray Macros a Function or a Macro?

2.2.2.8.4 Returning a Value Like a Function

2.2.2.8.5 Returning Values Via Parameters

2.3 Scene Settings

2.3.1 Camera

2.3.1.1 Placing the Camera

2.3.1.1.1 Location and Look_At

2.3.1.1.2 The Sky Vector

2.3.1.1.3 Angles

2.3.1.1.4 The Direction Vector

2.3.1.1.5 Up and Right Vectors

2.3.1.1.6 Aspect Ratio

2.3.1.1.7 Handedness

2.3.1.1.8 Transforming the Camera

2.3.1.2 Types of Projection

2.3.1.2.1 Perspective projection

2.3.1.2.2 Orthographic projection

2.3.1.2.3 Mesh projection

2.3.1.2.3.1 Rays Per Pixel

2.3.1.2.3.2 Distribution Type

2.3.1.2.3.3 Max Distance

2.3.1.2.3.4 Mesh Object

2.3.1.2.3.5 About the Location Vector

2.3.1.2.3.6 About the Direction Vector

2.3.1.2.3.7 The Smooth Modifier

2.3.1.2.4 Fisheye projection

2.3.1.2.5 Ultra wide angle projection

2.3.1.2.6 Omnimax projection

2.3.1.2.7 Panoramic projection

2.3.1.2.8 Cylindrical projection

2.3.1.2.9 Spherical projection

2.3.1.3 Focal Blur

2.3.1.4 Camera Ray Perturbation

2.3.1.5 Camera Identifiers

2.3.2 Atmospheric Effects

2.3.2.1 Atmospheric Media

2.3.2.2 Background

2.3.2.3 Fog

2.3.2.4 Sky Sphere

2.3.2.5 Rainbow

2.3.3 Global Settings

2.3.3.1 ADC_Bailout

2.3.3.2 Ambient_Light

2.3.3.3 Assumed_Gamma

2.3.3.3.1 Monitor Gamma

2.3.3.3.2 Image File Gamma

2.3.3.3.3 Scene File Gamma

2.3.3.3.4 Backward Compatibility

2.3.3.4 HF_Gray_16

2.3.3.5 Irid_Wavelength

2.3.3.6 Charset

2.3.3.7 Max_Trace_Level

2.3.3.8 Max_Intersections

2.3.3.9 Mm_Per_Unit

2.3.3.10 Number_Of_Waves

2.3.3.11 Noise_generator

2.3.3.12 Subsurface

2.3.4 Radiosity

2.3.4.1 Radiosity Basics

2.3.4.2 How Radiosity Works

2.3.4.3 Adjusting Radiosity

2.3.4.3.1 adc_bailout

2.3.4.3.2 brightness

2.3.4.3.3 count

2.3.4.3.4 error_bound

2.3.4.3.5 gray_threshold

2.3.4.3.6 importance

2.3.4.3.7 low_error_factor

2.3.4.3.8 max_sample

2.3.4.3.9 maximum_reuse

2.3.4.3.10 minimum_reuse

2.3.4.3.11 nearest_count

2.3.4.3.12 recursion_limit

2.3.4.4 Configuring Radiosity

2.3.4.4.1 Always Sample

2.3.4.4.2 Media and Radiosity

2.3.4.4.3 No Radiosity

2.3.4.4.4 Normal and Radiosity

2.3.4.4.5 Pretrace Start and End

2.3.4.4.6 Save and Load Radiosity Data

2.3.4.5 Tips on Radiosity

2.4 Objects

2.4.1 Finite Solid Primitives

2.4.1.1 Blob

2.4.1.2 Box

2.4.1.3 Cone

2.4.1.4 Cylinder

2.4.1.5 Height Field

2.4.1.6 Julia Fractal

2.4.1.7 Lathe

2.4.1.8 Ovus

2.4.1.9 Prism

2.4.1.10 Sphere

2.4.1.11 Sphere Sweep

2.4.1.12 Superquadric Ellipsoid

2.4.1.13 Surface of Revolution

2.4.1.14 Text

2.4.1.15 Torus

2.4.2 Finite Patch Primitives

2.4.2.1 Bicubic Patch

2.4.2.2 Disc

2.4.2.3 Mesh

2.4.2.3.1 Solid Mesh

2.4.2.4 Mesh2

2.4.2.4.1 Smooth and Flat triangles in the same mesh

2.4.2.4.2 Mesh Triangle Textures

2.4.2.5 Polygon

2.4.2.6 Triangle and Smooth Triangle

2.4.3 Infinite Solid Primitives

2.4.3.1 Plane

2.4.3.2 Poly, Cubic and Quartic

2.4.3.3 Quadric

2.4.4 Isosurface Object

2.4.5 Parametric Object

2.4.6 Constructive Solid Geometry

2.4.6.1 Inside and Outside

2.4.6.2 Union

2.4.6.2.1 Split_Union

2.4.6.3 Intersection

2.4.6.4 Difference

2.4.6.5 Merge

2.4.7 Light Sources

2.4.7.1 Point Lights

2.4.7.2 Spotlights

2.4.7.3 Cylindrical Lights

2.4.7.4 Parallel Lights

2.4.7.5 Area Lights

2.4.7.6 Shadowless Lights

2.4.7.7 Looks_like

2.4.7.8 Projected_Through

2.4.7.9 Light Fading

2.4.7.10 Atmospheric Media Interaction

2.4.7.11 Atmospheric Attenuation

2.4.8 Light Groups

2.4.9 Object Modifiers

2.4.9.1 Clipped_By

2.4.9.2 Bounded_By

2.4.9.3 Material

2.4.9.4 Inverse

2.4.9.5 Hollow

2.4.9.6 No_Shadow

2.4.9.7 No_Image, No_Reflection

2.4.9.8 Double_Illuminate

2.4.9.9 Sturm

2.5 Textures

2.5.1 Pigment

2.5.1.1 Solid Color Pigments

2.5.1.2 Color List Pigments

2.5.1.3 Color Maps

2.5.1.4 Pigment Maps and Pigment Lists

2.5.1.5 Image Maps

2.5.1.5.1 Specifying an Image Map

2.5.1.5.2 The Gamma Option

2.5.1.5.3 The Filter and Transmit Bitmap Modifiers

2.5.1.5.4 Using the Alpha Channel

2.5.1.6 Quick Color

2.5.2 Normal

2.5.2.1 Slope Maps

2.5.2.1.1 Normals, Accuracy

2.5.2.2 Normal Maps and Normal Lists

2.5.2.3 Bump Maps

2.5.2.3.1 Specifying a Bump Map

2.5.2.3.2 Bump_Size

2.5.2.3.3 Use_Index and Use_Color

2.5.2.4 Scaling normals

2.5.3 Finish

2.5.3.1 Ambient

2.5.3.2 Emission

2.5.3.3 Diffuse Reflection Items

2.5.3.3.1 Diffuse

2.5.3.3.2 Brilliance

2.5.3.3.3 Crand Graininess

2.5.3.3.4 Subsurface Light Transport

2.5.3.4 Highlights

2.5.3.4.1 Phong Highlights

2.5.3.4.2 Specular Highlight

2.5.3.4.3 Metallic Highlight Modifier

2.5.3.5 Specular Reflection

2.5.3.6 Conserve Energy for Reflection

2.5.3.7 Iridescence

2.5.4 Halo

2.5.5 Patterned Textures

2.5.5.1 Texture Maps

2.5.5.2 Tiles

2.5.5.3 Material Maps

2.5.5.3.1 Specifying a Material Map

2.5.6 Layered Textures

2.5.7 UV Mapping

2.5.7.1 Supported Objects

2.5.7.2 UV Vectors

2.5.8 Triangle Texture Interpolation

2.5.9 Interior Texture

2.5.10 Cutaway Textures

2.5.11 Patterns

2.5.11.1 Agate

2.5.11.2 Aoi

2.5.11.3 Average

2.5.11.4 Boxed

2.5.11.5 Bozo

2.5.11.6 Brick

2.5.11.7 Bumps

2.5.11.8 Cells

2.5.11.9 Checker

2.5.11.10 Crackle Patterns

2.5.11.11 Cubic

2.5.11.12 Cylindrical

2.5.11.13 Density_File

2.5.11.13.1 df3 file format

2.5.11.14 Dents

2.5.11.15 Facets

2.5.11.16 Fractal Patterns

2.5.11.17 Function as pattern

2.5.11.17.1 What can be used

2.5.11.18 Function Image

2.5.11.19 Gradient

2.5.11.20 Granite

2.5.11.21 Hexagon

2.5.11.22 Image Pattern

2.5.11.23 Leopard

2.5.11.24 Marble

2.5.11.25 Object Pattern

2.5.11.26 Onion

2.5.11.27 Pavement

2.5.11.28 Pigment Pattern

2.5.11.29 Planar

2.5.11.30 Quilted

2.5.11.31 Radial

2.5.11.32 Ripples

2.5.11.33 Slope

2.5.11.34 Spherical

2.5.11.35 Spiral1

2.5.11.36 Spiral2

2.5.11.37 Spotted

2.5.11.38 Square

2.5.11.39 Tiling

2.5.11.40 Triangular

2.5.11.41 Waves

2.5.11.42 Wood

2.5.11.43 Wrinkles

2.5.12 Pattern Modifiers

2.5.12.1 Transforming Patterns

2.5.12.2 Frequency and Phase

2.5.12.3 Waveforms

2.5.12.4 Noise Generators

2.5.12.5 Turbulence

2.5.12.6 Warps

2.5.12.6.1 Black Hole Warp

2.5.12.6.2 Repeat Warp

2.5.12.6.3 Turbulence versus Turbulence Warp

2.5.12.6.4 Turbulence Warp

2.5.12.6.4.1 Octaves

2.5.12.6.4.2 Lambda

2.5.12.6.4.3 Omega

2.5.12.6.5 Mapping using warps

2.5.12.7 Bitmap Modifiers

2.5.12.7.1 The once Option

2.5.12.7.2 The map_type Option

2.5.12.7.3 The interpolate Option

2.6 Interior & Media & Photons

2.6.1 Interior

2.6.1.1 Why are Interior and Media Necessary?

2.6.1.2 Empty and Solid Objects

2.6.1.3 Scaling objects with an interior

2.6.1.4 Refraction

2.6.1.5 Dispersion

2.6.1.5.1 Dispersion & Caustics

2.6.1.6 Attenuation

2.6.1.7 Simulated Caustics

2.6.1.8 Object-Media

2.6.2 Media

2.6.2.1 Media Types

2.6.2.1.1 Absorption

2.6.2.1.2 Emission

2.6.2.1.3 Scattering

2.6.2.2 Sampling Parameters & Methods

2.6.2.3 Density

2.6.2.3.1 General Density Modifiers

2.6.2.3.2 Density with color_map

2.6.2.3.3 Density Maps and Density Lists

2.6.2.3.4 Multiple Density vs. Multiple Media

2.6.3 Photons

2.6.3.1 Overview

2.6.3.1.1 Examples

2.6.3.2 Using Photon Mapping in Your Scene

2.6.3.2.1 Photon Global Settings

2.6.3.2.2 Shooting Photons at an Object

2.6.3.2.3 Photons and Light Sources

2.6.3.2.4 Photons and Media

2.6.3.3 Photons FAQ

2.6.3.4 Photon Tips

2.6.3.5 Advanced Techniques

2.6.3.5.1 Autostop

2.6.3.5.2 Adaptive Search Radius

2.6.3.5.3 Photons and Dispersion

2.6.3.5.4 Saving and Loading Photon Maps

2.7 Include Files

2.7.1 arrays.inc

2.7.2 chars.inc

2.7.3 colors.inc

2.7.3.1 Predefined colors

2.7.3.2 Color macros

2.7.4 consts.inc

2.7.4.1 Vector constants

2.7.4.2 Map type constants

2.7.4.3 Interpolation type constants

2.7.4.4 Fog type constants

2.7.4.5 Focal blur hexgrid constants

2.7.4.6 IORs

2.7.4.7 Dispersion amounts

2.7.4.8 Scattering media type constants

2.7.5 debug.inc

2.7.6 finish.inc

2.7.7 functions.inc

2.7.7.1 Common Parameters

2.7.7.1.1 Cross Section Type

2.7.7.1.2 Field Strength

2.7.7.1.3 Field Limit

2.7.7.1.4 SOR Switch

2.7.7.1.5 SOR Offset

2.7.7.1.6 SOR Angle

2.7.7.1.7 Invert Isosurface

2.7.7.2 Internal Functions

2.7.7.3 Pre defined functions

2.7.7.3.1 Pattern functions

2.7.8 glass.inc, glass_old.inc

2.7.8.1 Glass colors (with transparency)

2.7.8.2 Glass colors (without transparency, for fade_color)

2.7.8.3 Glass finishes

2.7.8.4 Glass interiors

2.7.8.5 Glass interior macros

2.7.8.6 glass_old.inc

2.7.8.6.1 Glass finishes

2.7.8.6.2 Glass textures

2.7.9 math.inc

2.7.9.1 Float functions and macros

2.7.9.2 Vector functions and macros

2.7.9.3 Vector Analysis

2.7.10 metals.inc, golds.inc

2.7.10.1 metals.inc

2.7.10.2 golds.inc

2.7.11 rand.inc

2.7.11.1 Flat Distributions

2.7.11.2 Other Distributions

2.7.11.2.1 Continuous Symmetric Distributions

2.7.11.2.2 Continuous Skewed Distributions

2.7.11.2.3 Discrete Distributions

2.7.12 shapes.inc, shapes_old.inc, shapes2.inc, shapesq.inc

2.7.12.1 shapes.inc

2.7.12.1.1 The HF Macros

2.7.12.2 shapes_old.inc

2.7.12.3 shapes2.inc

2.7.12.4 shapesq.inc

2.7.13 skies.inc, stars.inc

2.7.13.1 skies.inc

2.7.13.2 stars.inc

2.7.14 stones.inc, stones1.inc, stones2.inc, stoneold.inc

2.7.14.1 stones1.inc

2.7.14.2 stones2.inc

2.7.15 stdinc.inc

2.7.16 strings.inc

2.7.17 textures.inc

2.7.17.1 Stones

2.7.17.2 Skies

2.7.17.3 Woods

2.7.17.4 Glass

2.7.17.5 Metals

2.7.17.6 Special textures

2.7.17.7 Texture and pattern macros

2.7.18 transforms.inc

2.7.19 woodmaps.inc, woods.inc

2.7.19.1 woodmaps.inc

2.7.19.2 woods.inc

2.7.20 Other files

2.7.20.1 logo.inc

2.7.20.2 rad_def.inc

2.7.20.3 screen.inc

2.7.20.4 stdcam.inc

2.7.20.5 stage1.inc

2.7.20.6 sunpos.inc

2.7.20.7 font files (*.ttf)

2.7.20.8 color_map files (*.map)

2.7.20.9 image files (*.png, *.pot, *.df3)

2.8 Quick Reference

2.8.1 Quick Reference Contents

2.8.2 The Scene

2.8.3 Language Basics

2.8.3.1 Floats

2.8.3.2 Vectors

2.8.3.3 Colors

2.8.3.4 User defined Functions

2.8.3.5 Strings

2.8.3.6 Arrays

2.8.3.7 Splines

2.8.4 Language Directives

2.8.4.1 File Inclusion

2.8.4.2 Identifier Declaration

2.8.4.3 File Input/Output

2.8.4.4 Default Texture

2.8.4.5 Version Identifier

2.8.4.6 Control Flow Directives

2.8.4.7 Message Streams

2.8.4.8 Macro

2.8.4.9 Embedded Directives

2.8.5 Transformations

2.8.6 Camera

2.8.7 Lights

2.8.7.1 Lightgroup

2.8.8 Objects

2.8.8.1 Finite Solid Objects

2.8.8.2 Finite Patch Objects

2.8.8.3 Infinite Solid Objects

2.8.8.4 Isosurface

2.8.8.5 Parametric

2.8.8.6 CSG

2.8.9 Object Modifiers

2.8.9.1 UV Mapping

2.8.9.2 Material

2.8.9.3 Interior

2.8.9.4 Interior Texture

2.8.10 Texture

2.8.10.1 Plain Texture

2.8.10.2 Layered Texture

2.8.10.3 Patterned Texture

2.8.10.4 Pigment

2.8.10.5 Normal

2.8.10.6 Finish

2.8.10.7 Pattern

2.8.10.8 Pattern Modifiers

2.8.11 Media

2.8.12 Atmospheric Effects

2.8.12.1 Background

2.8.12.2 Fog

2.8.12.3 Sky Sphere

2.8.12.4 Rainbow

2.8.13 Global Settings

2.8.13.1 Radiosity

2.8.13.2 Photons

POV-Ray for Windows

3.1 Introduction

3.1.1 What is POV-Ray for Windows?

3.1.2 ... And What Is It Not?

3.1.3 Who Can Use POV-Ray for Windows?

3.1.4 System Requirements

3.1.5 System Specific Features

3.1.5.1 What's new in POV-Ray for Windows

3.1.5.2 SYS File Type

3.1.5.3 System Specific Charset

3.1.5.4 Time Units in CPU Histogram

3.1.6 Spelling

3.1.7 Reporting Bugs

3.1.8 Trademarks

3.2 Getting Started

3.2.1 The Demo

3.2.2 Starting a Render Job

3.2.3 Dragging and Dropping Files

3.2.4 Tutorials

3.2.5 Understanding File Types

3.2.5.1 POV Files

3.2.5.2 INI Files

3.2.5.2.1 INI File Sections

3.2.6 Using the Internal Editor

3.2.6.1 The Editor Feature Set

3.2.6.2 Turning the Internal Editor On or Off

3.2.6.3 Preventing File Restore

3.2.6.4 Switching between Editor windows

3.2.6.5 Keyword Expansion and CodeList

3.2.6.5.1 A Quick Example

3.2.6.5.2 How Keyword Expansion Works

3.2.6.5.3 CodeList

3.2.6.5.4 Using CodeList

3.2.6.5.5 Summary

3.2.6.6 Configuring the Internal Editor

3.2.6.6.1 Important Editor Notes

3.2.6.6.2 Default Key Mappings

3.2.6.6.3 Setting Key Mappings

3.2.6.6.4 Reserved Keys

3.2.6.6.5 Using the Mouse

3.2.6.6.6 European Users and Match Brace

3.2.6.6.7 Global vs. Local Options

3.2.6.7 The Language Setting

3.2.6.8 The Tab Spacing Setting

3.2.6.9 The Font Setting

3.2.7 I/O Restrictions

3.2.7.1 High-Level Configuration

3.2.7.2 Overall Options

3.2.7.3 No Restrictions

3.2.7.4 Restrict Write but Allow Read

3.2.7.5 Restrict Read/Write

3.2.7.6 Restrictions Affect all Core File I/O

3.2.7.7 Additional Options

3.2.7.8 Permit Read/Write in Current Directory

3.2.7.9 Disable Starting other Programs

3.2.7.10 Low-Level Configuration

3.2.7.11 Overall Concept

3.2.7.12 Adding or Changing Allowed Directories

3.2.7.13 For Those Who use an Image Output Directory

3.3 Command-Line Options

3.3.1 Special Command-Line Options

3.3.2 Adding New Resolutions

3.4 Windows

3.4.1 The Main Window

3.4.2 The Toolbar

3.4.2.1 Preset Rendering Options

3.4.2.2 Toolbar Command Line

3.4.3 The Status Bar

3.4.4 The Tab Control

3.4.5 The Message Window

3.4.6 The Editor Window

3.4.7 The Render Window

3.5 Menus

3.5.1 File Menu

3.5.1.1 New File

3.5.1.2 Open File

3.5.1.3 Close

3.5.1.4 Close All

3.5.1.5 Print

3.5.1.6 Exit

3.5.1.7 MRU List

3.5.1.8 Older Files

3.5.2 Edit Menu

3.5.2.1 Copy Pane

3.5.2.2 Clear Messages

3.5.2.3 Undo

3.5.2.4 Redo

3.5.2.5 Cut

3.5.2.6 Copy

3.5.2.7 Paste

3.5.2.8 Delete

3.5.2.9 Select All

3.5.2.10 Selection

3.5.2.10.1 Indent

3.5.2.10.2 Indent To Previous

3.5.2.10.3 Undent

3.5.2.10.4 Uppercase

3.5.2.10.5 Lowercase

3.5.2.10.6 Convert Spaces To Tabs

3.5.2.10.7 Convert Tabs To Spaces

3.5.3 Search Menu

3.5.3.1 Find

3.5.3.1.1 Match Whole Word Only

3.5.3.1.2 Match Case

3.5.3.1.3 Wildcard Search

3.5.3.2 Replace

3.5.3.3 Find Next

3.5.3.4 Match Brace

3.5.4 Text Menu

3.5.4.1 Show White Space

3.5.4.2 Set Repeat Count

3.5.4.3 Tab Size

3.5.4.4 Indent

3.5.4.4.1 Auto-Indent Style

3.5.4.4.2 None

3.5.4.4.3 Language Scope

3.5.4.4.4 Copy From Previous Line

3.5.4.5 Bookmarks

3.5.4.5.1 Clear All

3.5.4.5.2 First

3.5.4.5.3 Last

3.5.4.5.4 Next

3.5.4.5.5 Previous

3.5.4.5.6 Toggle

3.5.5 Editor Menu

3.5.5.1 Auto-Load Error File

3.5.5.2 Auto-Show Parse Messages

3.5.5.3 Auto-Save Delay

3.5.5.4 Create Backups

3.5.5.5 Allow Undo After Manual Save

3.5.5.6 Click Beyond EOL

3.5.5.7 Constrain Caret To Text

3.5.5.8 Overlay Keyword Expansion On Tab Key

3.5.5.9 Show Message Window

3.5.5.10 Editor Preferences Dialog

3.5.5.11 Record Macro/Play Macro

3.5.5.12 Auto-Reload

3.5.5.13 Scroll Bars

3.5.5.14 Color Scheme

3.5.5.15 Editor Preferences

3.5.5.15.1 Color/Font

3.5.5.15.1.1 Item

3.5.5.15.1.2 Color

3.5.5.15.1.3 Background

3.5.5.15.1.4 Font

3.5.5.15.2 Language/Tabs

3.5.5.15.2.1 Auto Indentation Style

3.5.5.15.2.2 Tabs

3.5.5.15.2.3 Language

3.5.5.15.3 Keyboard

3.5.5.15.4 Misc

3.5.5.15.4.1 Smooth Scrolling

3.5.5.15.4.2 Show Left Margin

3.5.5.15.4.3 Line Tooltips on Scroll

3.5.5.15.4.4 Allow Drag and Drop

3.5.5.15.4.5 Allow Column Selection

3.5.5.15.4.6 Confine Caret to Text

3.5.5.15.4.7 Color Syntax Highlighting

3.5.5.15.4.8 Show Horizontal/Vertical Scrollbar

3.5.5.15.4.9 Allow Horizontal/Vertical Splitting

3.5.5.15.4.10 Line Numbering

3.5.5.15.4.11 Max Undoable Actions

3.5.6 Insert Menu

3.5.6.1 How the Insert Menu is Built

3.5.6.2 Physical Layout

3.5.6.3 Sorting the Insert Menu

3.5.6.4 Adding a Separator

3.5.6.5 Using the Insert Menu

3.5.7 Render Menu

3.5.7.1 Edit Settings/Render

3.5.7.2 Select File and Render

3.5.7.3 Start Rendering (Go!)/Stop Rendering

3.5.7.4 Run Demo

3.5.7.5 Run Benchmark

3.5.7.6 File Queue

3.5.7.7 Clear Queue

3.5.7.8 Animation Pane

3.5.7.8.1 Minimize Shellouts

3.5.7.8.2 No Shellout Wait

3.5.7.9 Render Priority

3.5.7.10 Duty Cycle

3.5.7.11 Sound Settings

3.5.7.12 On Completion

3.5.7.12.1 Do Nothing

3.5.7.12.2 Display Message

3.5.7.12.3 Exit POV-Ray for Windows

3.5.7.13 Rerun SubMenu

3.5.7.13.1 Rerun Dialog

3.5.7.13.2 Rerun

3.5.7.13.3 Continue

3.5.7.13.4 File List

3.5.8 Options Menu

3.5.8.1 Keep Single Instance

3.5.8.2 Use Render Animation

3.5.8.3 Show Toolbar

3.5.8.4 Place in System Tray

3.5.8.5 Script I/O Restrictions

3.5.8.6 Drag'N'Drop Destination

3.5.8.7 Online Operations

3.5.8.7.1 Check For New Versions

3.5.8.7.2 Include System Information

3.5.8.8 Other Settings

3.5.8.8.1 Use Editor

3.5.8.8.2 Show Tips of the Day

3.5.8.8.3 Show Tooltips

3.5.8.8.4 Preserve Messages

3.5.8.8.5 Save Settings on Exit

3.5.8.8.6 Hide New User Help

3.5.8.8.7 Show Next Tip

3.5.8.8.8 Re-Render Insert Menu Bitmaps

3.5.8.8.9 Message Window

3.5.8.8.10 Select Plain Background

3.5.8.8.11 Text Font

3.5.8.8.12 Text Color

3.5.8.8.13 Background Color

3.5.8.8.14 Tiling Options

3.5.8.8.15 Render Window

3.5.8.8.16 Force 8 Bit Display

3.5.8.8.17 Preserve Contents During Animation

3.5.8.8.18 Re-display

3.5.8.8.19 Autoclose

3.5.8.8.20 Close

3.5.8.8.21 Keep Above Main

3.5.8.8.22 Get Focus on Creation

3.5.8.8.23 Hide When Main Minimized

3.5.8.8.24 Editor Window

3.5.9 Tools Menu

3.5.9.1 Syntax Coloring

3.5.9.2 Reload Tool Menu

3.5.9.3 Edit PVTOOLS.INI

3.5.9.4 Example PVTOOLS.INI

3.5.9.5 GUI Extensions Menu

3.5.10 Context Menus

3.5.10.1 The Message Window Context Menu

3.5.10.2 Minimize to System Tray

3.5.10.3 Show Tip

3.5.10.4 The Render Window Context Menu

3.5.10.5 The Editor Window Context Menu

3.5.10.6 Show or Hide Messages

3.5.10.7 Context Help

3.5.10.8 Open <Filename>

3.5.10.9 Copy "..." to Command-Line

3.6 Bug Reports

3.6.1 Things that look like bugs but aren't

3.6.2 Feature Requests are not bugs

3.6.3 "I don't like the way this works so it must be a bug"

3.6.4 Known Bugs

3.6.5 Bugs and GUI Extensions

3.6.6 Spelling

3.6.7 Crash Upload Utility

3.6.8 Bug Reporting via Email

3.6.9 Bug Reporting via our Bug Tracking System

3.7 Speed Considerations

3.7.1 Render Priority

3.7.2 Render Window

3.7.3 Memory

3.7.4 Scene Features

3.7.5 Render Quality

POV-Ray for Mac OS

4.1 Introduction

4.1.1 What's new in POV-Ray for Mac OS

4.1.2 Installation

4.1.3 Requirements

4.2 Getting Started

4.3 Menus

4.3.1 Apple Menu

4.3.2 File Menu

4.3.3 Edit Menu

4.3.4 Search Menu

4.3.5 Templates Menu

4.3.6 Render Menu

4.3.7 Window Menu

4.3.8 Help Menu

4.4 Windows

4.4.1 Message Window

4.4.2 Text Editor Window

4.4.3 Render Preview Window

4.4.4 Templates Window

4.5 Dialogs

4.5.1 Preferences Dialog

4.5.1.1 General Pane

4.5.1.1.1 Fast Preview Mode

4.5.1.1.2 Fast Functions

4.5.1.1.3 Background Rendering

4.5.1.1.4 Use Temporary Memory

4.5.1.1.5 Render Engine

4.5.1.2 Editor Pane

4.5.1.2.1 Font

4.5.1.2.2 Size

4.5.1.2.3 Tab Size

4.5.1.2.4 Auto Indent

4.5.1.2.5 Syntax Coloring

4.5.1.2.6 Symbol Coloring

4.5.1.3 Actions Pane

4.5.1.3.1 Startup Actions

4.5.1.3.2 Startup and termination script actions

4.5.1.3.3 Actions after all jobs finished

4.5.1.4 Files Pane

4.5.1.4.1 Allow rendering of ".pov" files only

4.5.1.4.2 Application creator codes for output files

4.5.1.5 Scenes Pane

4.5.1.5.1 Global Include Paths

4.5.1.5.2 Default Render Settings Set

4.5.2 Render Settings Dialog

4.5.2.1 Scene Pane

4.5.2.1.1 Command-Line

4.5.2.1.2 Language

4.5.2.1.3 Show Preview

4.5.2.1.4 Mosaic Preview

4.5.2.1.5 File Specific Include Paths

4.5.2.2 Quality Pane

4.5.2.2.1 Render Quality

4.5.2.2.2 Anti-Aliasing

4.5.2.3 Optimization Pane

4.5.2.3.1 Auto-Bounding

4.5.2.3.2 Ignore any "bounded_by" in scene

4.5.2.3.3 Split Unions

4.5.2.3.4 Use Light Buffer

4.5.2.3.5 Use Vista Buffer

4.5.2.3.6 Draw Vista Buffers

4.5.2.4 Output Pane

4.5.2.4.1 Image Size

4.5.2.4.2 Partial Image

4.5.2.4.3 Save Image As

4.5.2.4.4 Bits per color

4.5.2.4.5 Add Alpha-Channel

4.5.2.4.6 Compression

4.5.2.4.7 Set Compression

4.5.2.4.8 Save Histogram As

4.5.2.5 Animation Pane

4.5.2.5.1 Frame Number

4.5.2.5.2 Clock Value

4.5.2.5.3 Field Rendering

4.5.2.6 Actions Pane

4.6 Command-Line Options

4.7 Tips and Tricks

4.7.1 To speed up rendering as much as possible on the Mac

4.7.2 How to use TrueType fonts in the "text" object

4.7.3 Known Problems

POV-Ray for Unix

5.1 Introduction

5.1.1 What is POV-Ray?

5.1.2 What is POV-Ray for Unix?

5.1.3 ... And What Is It Not?

5.1.4 Who Can Use POV-Ray for Unix?

5.1.5 Spelling

5.1.6 Reporting Bugs

5.1.7 Trademarks

5.2 Features

5.2.1 I/O Restrictions

5.2.2 Display Options

5.2.3 Benchmark Mode

5.2.4 Sample scene render scripts

5.2.5 KDE integration

5.2.6 What's new in POV-Ray for Unix

5.3 Getting Started

5.3.1 Available distributions

5.3.2 Configuration

5.3.2.1 The I/O Restrictions configuration file

5.3.2.2 The main POV-Ray INI file

5.3.3 Starting a Render Job

5.3.3.1 X Window display

5.3.3.2 SVGAlib display

5.3.3.3 Output file formats

5.3.4 Interrupting POV-Ray

5.3.5 Tutorials

5.3.6 Rendering the Sample Scenes

5.3.7 POV-Ray for Unix Tips

5.3.7.1 Automated execution

5.3.7.2 Post-processing Images

5.4 I/O Restrictions

5.4.1 Configuration file format

5.4.2 File I/O Security

5.4.3 Shellout Security

5.4.4 Permitted Paths

5.4.4.1 Examples for path settings

5.4.5 Example configuration file

5.5 Understanding File Types

5.5.1 POV Files

5.5.2 INI Files

5.5.2.1 INI File Sections

5.6 Understanding POV-Ray Options

5.6.1 Special Command-Line Options

5.6.2 Benchmark Rendering Mode

5.7 Bug Reports

5.7.1 Feature Requests are not bugs

5.7.2 Known Bugs

5.7.3 Spelling

5.7.4 Bug Reporting via Email

5.7.5 Bug Reporting via our Bug Tracking System

5.8 Speed Considerations

5.8.1 Render Priority

5.8.2 Render Window

5.8.3 Memory

5.8.4 Scene Features

5.8.5 Render Quality