Reference:Introduction

This book provides a reference for the Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer (POV-Ray). The documentation applies to all platforms to which this version of POV-Ray is ported. The platform-specific documentation is available for each platform separately.

This book is divided into these main parts:

1. This introduction together with a complete reference on POV-Ray Options which explains options (set either by command line switches or by INI file keywords) that tell POV-Ray how to render the scenes.
2. A complete reference on Scene Description Language in which you describe the scene.
3. A complete reference on the Standard Include Files that come with the POV-Ray package, to be used in your scenes.
4. Finally, a consolidation of the POV-Ray Scene Description Language in the Quick Reference.

This book covers only the generic parts of the program which are common to each version.

Note: Each version has platform-specific documentation not included here.

We recommend you finish reading the tutorial book then read the platform-specific information before using this reference.

The platform-specific docs will show you how to render a sample scene and will give you detailed description of the platform-specific features.

The Windows version documentation is available on the POV-Ray program's Help menu or by pressing the F1 key while in the program.

The Mac platform documentation is available via the Help menu as well as for viewing using a regular web browser. Details may be found in the POV-Ray MacOS Read Me which contains information specific to the Mac version of POV-Ray. It is best to read this document first.

The Unix / Linux version documentation can be found at the same place as the platform independent part. Usually that is /usr/local/share/povray-3.?/html

More about the notation used throughout this book may be found in the section Notation and Basic Assumptions.

Contents

1. Command-line Options
   1. Animation Options
   2. General Output Options
   3. Display Output Options
   4. File Output Options
   5. Scene Parsing Options
   6. Shell-out to Operating System
   7. Text Output
   8. Tracing Options
2. Scene Description Language
   1. Language Basics
      1. Keywords
      2. Identifiers
      3. Comments
      4. Numeric Expressions
      5. Vector Expressions
      6. Color Expressions
      7. User-Defined Functions
      8. Strings
      9. Arrays
      10. Splines
   2. Language Directives
      1. Include Directive
      2. Declare and Local Directives
      3. File I/O Directives
      4. Default Directive
      5. Version Directive
      6. Conditional Directives
      7. User Message Directives
      8. User Defined Macros
3. Scene
   1. Global Settings
   2. Camera
   3. Atmospheric Effects
      1. Atmospheric Media
      2. Background
      3. Fog
      4. Sky Sphere
      5. Rainbow
4. Lighting
   1. Light Sources
      1. Point Lights
      2. Spotlights
      3. Cylindrical Lights
      4. Parallel Lights
      5. Area Lights
   2. Light Groups
   3. Radiosity
   4. Photons
5. Objects
   1. Finite Solid Primitives
      1. Blob
      2. Box
      3. Cone
      4. Cylinder
      5. Height Field
      6. Isosurface
      7. Julia Fractal
      8. Lathe
      9. Ovus
      10. Parametric
      11. Prism
      12. Sphere
      13. Sphere Sweep
      14. Superquadric Ellipsoid
      15. Surface of Revolution
      16. Text
      17. Torus
   2. Finite Patch Primitives
      1. Bicubic Patch
      2. Disc
      3. Mesh
      4. Mesh2
      5. Polygon
      6. Triangle
      7. Smooth Triangle
   3. Infinite Solid Primitives
      1. Plane
      2. Poly
      3. Cubic
      4. Quartic
      5. Polynomial
      6. Quadric
   4. Constructive Solid Geometry
      1. Inside and Outside
      2. Union
      3. Intersection
      4. Difference
      5. Merge
   5. Object Modifiers
6. Textures
   1. Pigment
   2. Normal
   3. Finish
   4. Halo
   5. Patterned Textures
   6. Layered Textures
   7. UV Mapping
   8. Triangle Texture Interpolation
   9. Interior Texture
   10. Cutaway Textures
7. Media
   1. Media Types
   2. Sampling Parameters & Methods
   3. Density
8. Patterns
   1. General Patterns
      1. Agate
      2. Boxed
      3. Bozo
      4. Brick
      5. Bumps
      6. Cubic
      7. Cylindrical
      8. Density_File
      9. Dents
      10. Facets
      11. Fractal Patterns
      12. Function as pattern
      13. Gradient
      14. Granite
      15. Hexagon
      16. Leopard
      17. Marble
      18. Onion
      19. Pavement
      20. Pigment Pattern
      21. Planar
      22. Quilted
      23. Radial
      24. Ripples
      25. Spherical
      26. Spiral1
      27. Spiral2
      28. Spotted
      29. Square
      30. Tiling
      31. Waves
      32. Wood
      33. Wrinkles
   2. Discontinuous Patterns
      1. Cells
      2. Checker
      3. Crackle Patterns
      4. Object Pattern
      5. Triangular
   3. Normal-Dependent Patterns
      1. Aoi
      2. Slope
   4. Special Patterns
      1. Average
      2. Image Pattern
   5. Pattern Modifiers
9. Include Files
   1. Main Files
      1. arrays.inc
      2. chars.inc
      3. colors.inc
      4. consts.inc
      5. debug.inc
      6. finish.inc
      7. functions.inc
      8. glass.inc, glass_old.inc
      9. math.inc
      10. metals.inc
      11. golds.inc
      12. rand.inc
      13. shapes.inc
      14. shapes2.inc
      15. shapesq.inc
      16. skies.inc
      17. stars.inc
      18. stones.inc
      19. stdinc.inc
      20. strings.inc
      21. textures.inc
      22. transforms.inc
      23. woodmaps.inc
      24. woods.inc
      25. logo.inc
      26. rad_def.inc
      27. screen.inc
      28. sunpos.inc
   2. Old Files
      1. glass_old.inc
      2. shapes_old.inc
      3. stage1.inc
      4. stdcam.inc
      5. stones1.inc
      6. stones2.inc
   3. Other Files
      1. font files (*.ttf)
      2. color_map files (*.map)
      3. image files (*.png, *.pot, *.df3)