Difference between revisions of "Documentation:Tutorial Section 5.1"

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<br>
 
<br>
 
<!--</wikitalk>--->
 
<!--</wikitalk>--->
===Which Version of POV-Ray should you use?===
+
<!--REMOVE--->==Appendices==<!--THIS--->
<p>POV-Ray can be used under Windows 9x/NT/2000, Apple Power PC, x86 Linux,
+
===What to do if you don't have POV-Ray===
UNIX and other platforms. The latest versions of the necessary files are
+
<p>This documentation assumes you already have POV-Ray installed and running however the POV-Team does distribute this file by itself in various formats including online on the internet. If you do not have POV-Ray or are not sure you have the official version or the latest version, then the following sections will tell you what to get and where to get it.</p>
available on [http://www.povray.org/ our web site] and through various CD
 
distributions. See section &quot;<!--<linkto "Where to Find POV-Ray Files">Where to Find POV-Ray Files</linkto>--->[[Documentation:Tutorial Section 5.1#Where to Find POV-Ray Files|Where to Find POV-Ray Files]]&quot;
 
for more info. Dos, Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups, SunOS and Amiga are no longer supported.
 
If your platform is not supported and you are proficient in compiling
 
source code programs written in C/C++, then you may like to retrieve
 
the source for POV-Ray from our website and attempt to built it
 
yourself. Note that the POV-Team provides absolutely no support for
 
building POV-Ray from the source code, especially on platforms that
 
we do not officially support.</p>
 
  
===Microsoft Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP===
+
<p class="Note"><b>Note:</b> We <b>strongly recommend</b> that you obtain POV-Ray directly from [http://www.povray.org/download/ the POV-Ray website] (or your company/school intranet, if applicable). Some websites have been known to re-package the POV-Ray software in an installer that bundles adware. If the installation package is not signed by <i>Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.</i>, then <b>it is not from us</b> and may have been tampered with. The official installer supplied by us contains <i>no adware or third-party software of any kind.</i></p>
<p>
+
====Which Version of POV-Ray should you use?====
The 32-bit Windows version runs under Windows 95, Windows 98, NT, 2000 and  
+
<p>POV-Ray can be used under Windows&trade; XP or newer, x86 Apple&trade; Macintosh&trade;, and Linux&trade; &amp;
XP or newer. Required hardware and software: Minimum - 486/100 with 32mb
+
UNIX&trade; on numerous hardware platforms. See section <!--<linkto "Where to Find POV-Ray Files">Where to Find POV-Ray Files</linkto>--->[[Documentation:Tutorial Section 5.1#Where to Find POV-Ray Files|Where to Find POV-Ray Files]] for more info.</p>
RAM and Windows 95. Disk space - 20 megabytes. Recommended - Pentium 4 or
 
equivalent with at least 256mb of RAM running Windows 2000 or XP, equipped
 
with an XGA display (or better) running in true color mode.
 
</p>
 
  
 
<p>
 
<p>
The forthcoming 64-bit Windows version will initially run under Windows XP
+
Older versions of POV-Ray supported many platforms no longer in regular use; we preserve such old versions in our [http://www.povray.org/ftp/pub/povray/Old-Versions/ archives] if you wish to access them.</p>
64-bit edition on AMD64-based machines, or those compatibile with them. The
 
recommended configuration has not yet been determined but as a rule of
 
thumb we would suggest at least 256mb RAM (512mb preferred).
 
</p>
 
 
 
<p class="Note">
 
<strong>Note:</strong> accelerated graphics hardware will not improve
 
performance. Nor will MMX or 3D Now. These technologies are not aimed at
 
raytracing. SSE2-equipped CPU's (such as the Pentium 4) will enhance
 
performance if and only if an SSE2-enabled version of POV-Ray for Windows
 
is installed. If we make such a version available it will be provided on
 
our website and FTP server using a different name than that mentioned
 
below.
 
</p>
 
  
 
<p>
 
<p>
Required POV-Ray files: User archive POVWIN36.EXE - a self-extracting
+
If your platform is not supported and you are proficient in compiling
archive containing the program, sample scenes, standard include files and  
+
source code programs written in C/C++, then you may like to retrieve
documentation.
+
the source for POV-Ray from our website and attempt to built it
</p>
+
yourself.</p>
  
 +
=====Microsoft Windows=====
 
<p>
 
<p>
Optional: The source code is not needed to use POV-Ray. It is provided for
+
As of POV-Ray version 3.7 the Windows versions of POV-Ray require Windows XP and later.
the curious and adventurous. POVWIN_S.ZIP --- The C/C++ source code for POV-Ray
+
We have had reports of v3.7 working on Windows 2000 with all service packs installed, however
for Windows, contains generic parts and Windows specific parts. It does not
+
we cannot guarantee that this will remain the case indefinitely, as we do not test against W2K.
include sample scenes, standard include files and documentation so you should
+
If you have an older system you may like to look at POV-Ray version 3.6, which works on Windows 95
also get the executable archive as well. POV-Ray can only be compiled using C/C++
+
and up.
compilers that create 32-bit Windows applications.
 
 
</p>
 
</p>
  
 
<p>
 
<p>
We currently support VC++ v7 (v6 will <strong>not</strong> work due to  
+
We supply both 32 and 64-bit versions of POVWIN which have been tested to run with AMD&trade; and
compiler issues with certain C++ features), Borland C++, Open Watcom,
+
Intel&trade; x86 and x64 processors. As of version 3.7, SMP systems are fully supported; by default
MinGW, and DJGPP (BJGPP 2.04 or later), and the Intel C++ Compiler version
+
POVWIN will use all available processing cores when rendering. For 32-bit systems, we supply both
8. Support for both Intel and Microsoft's C++ compiler for AMD64 is also in
+
non-SSE2 and SSE2-enabled binaries. The installer will determine which is the most appropriate for
the works and will be forthcoming in a later source code release (once we
+
your system at install time and install shortcuts to that executable (note however all executables are
release an official 64-bit version of POV-Ray for Windows).
+
always placed in the bin folder regardless of the platform). For 64-bit systems there is only a single
 +
executable - a separate SSE version is not needed as all x64 CPU's have SSE2 available.
 
</p>
 
</p>
  
 
<p>
 
<p>
Note that no matter which compiler you use, you will need to obtain the
+
We recommend 100mb free disk space (the installation does not require that much, but room for
HTML Help API toolkit from Microsoft's web site (unless you already have it  
+
temporary files during rendering is generally required) and at least 1gb free (i.e. available to
installed). This toolkit contains header files and libraries required to  
+
POV-Ray at runtime) memory. POV's actual RAM requirement can vary greatly; it's possible to render
compile POV-Ray for Windows.
+
files with as little as 30mb of free RAM, but typical needs are much greater than this. The actual
 +
use depends on what SDL files are provided for rendering and the image output options in use. We
 +
<em>strongly</em> recommend that you have sufficient RAM for rendering your scene files without
 +
resorting to swap - if a render hits the pagefile regularly it will completely destroy rendering
 +
performance.
 
</p>
 
</p>
  
 
<p class="Note">
 
<p class="Note">
<strong>Note:</strong> while we know for certain that the code will work
+
<strong>Note:</strong> Accelerated graphics hardware (such as 3D cards) will not improve rendering
with VC++ v7 and the Intel compiler v8, the others mentioned above may
+
performance. This technology is not currently aimed at raytracing but is, generally speaking,
need some tweaking since we do not regularly test with them and it is
+
optimized for single-precision scanline rendering as used in games or other simulations. POV-Ray,
possible some later code changes may have broken the build.
+
like all raytracers, requires double-precision floating-point in order to be able to accurately
 +
render scenes.
 
</p>
 
</p>
  
===Linux for Intel x86===
+
<ul>
<p>
+
<li>Required POV-Ray files: the setup EXE supplied via our [http://www.povray.org/download/ download page].
The PC-Linux version should run on any GNU/Linux distribution based on the
+
This file will be timestamped and digitally signed by <em>Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty Ltd</em>.
kernel 2.2 series or above using the ELF 32-bit format for executables.
+
The key in use at the time of writing is issued by DigiCert and remains current until September 2017.
The binary is fully static, meaning that it has no external dependencies
+
All binaries (DLL's and EXE's) supplied by us for version 3.8 are also signed by this key.
to system or third-party libraries. It includes support for two kinds of
+
If you come across an unsigned binary (or one signed by anyone other than the above) that claims
display: the standard text-based display and the graphics display using
+
to be an official release, <i>it is not from us and should not be used</i>.</li>
either the X Window System or the SVGA library.
+
<li>Optional: The source code is not needed to use POV-Ray. It is provided for the curious and adventurous.
</p>
+
See the source-code links on our [http://www.povray.org/download/ download page].
 +
</li>
 +
</ul>
  
<p>Required hardware and software:
+
<p class="Note"><Strong>Note:</strong> System admins/lab techs who wish to do custom installs of POV-Ray for Windows should refer to the windows platform-specific documentation for more details.</p>
An Intel Pentium-compatible CPU (i586 or better) and at least 32 MB of RAM.
 
About 20 MB of disk space to install the program, its documentation,
 
scenes and standard include files.
 
A text editor capable of editing plain ASCII text files.
 
Graphic file viewer capable of viewing image formats such as
 
PNG, TIFF, PPM or TGA.
 
</p>
 
  
<p>Required POV-Ray files:
+
=====Apple  Macintosh=====
povlinux-3.6.tgz or povlinux-3.6.tar.gz - archive
+
<p>Documentation Pending</p>
containing an official binary combining text, SVGALib and X Window displays.
 
Also contains sample scenes, standard include files and documentation in HTML
 
and plain ASCII text.
 
</p>
 
  
<p>Recommended:
+
=====Linux/Unix=====
Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP (faster the better) with
+
<p>
128 MB (text console) / 256 MB (X Window running a window manager) or more RAM.
+
Because Linux/Unix run on a wide variety of hardware, the POV-Team
A recent GNU/Linux distribution with kernel 2.4.x or above running KDE 3.x
+
cannot provide executable versions for every variation. Instead, we distribute
for full POV-Ray integration in the window manager.
+
a generic, portable C++ source code package suitable for generating binaries
Alternatively, SVGA display preferably with VESA interface and high color
+
on Unix or Unix-like platforms. It is known to compile and run correctly on recent versions of
or true color ability.
+
GNU/Linux for x86/x64, and should be fairly straightforward to get running on any
 +
POSIX-compliant Unix-like operating system with a Bourne-compatible shell.
 
</p>
 
</p>
 
<p class="Note"><strong>Note:</strong>
 
accelerated graphics hardware will not improve performance.
 
</p>
 
 
<p>Optional:
 
povray-3.6.tgz or povray-3.6.tar.gz - archive containing the generic
 
UNIX/Linux C++ source code of POV-Ray for UNIX.
 
The source code is not needed to use POV-Ray.
 
It is provided for the curious and adventurous.
 
The archive contains generic Unix parts and Linux specific parts
 
(namely: support for SVGAlib).
 
This package does also include sample scenes, standard include files and
 
documentation.
 
For displaying purposes, the SVGAlib and X11 (X Window) includes and
 
libraries can be used by the source code of POV-Ray for UNIX.
 
See the section related to the
 
<!--<linkto "Generic Unix">generic Unix source code package</linkto>--->[[Documentation:Tutorial Section 5.1#Generic Unix|generic Unix source code package]] for
 
further details.
 
</p>
 
 
===Apple  Macintosh===
 
<p>The Macintosh version runs under Apple's Mac OS operating system version
 
8.6 (it may run on 8.1 and 8.5 as well, but we do not support POV-Ray 3.6
 
running on Mac OS 8.1 and 8.5) or newer with CarbonLib 1.0.4 or newer installed.
 
Note that we no longer support 68K based Macintosh computers.
 
POV-Ray 3.6 requires a Power Macintosh!</p>
 
 
<p>A Power Macintosh is any iMac, iBook, Mac G3, Mac G4, Mac G5,
 
Cube, any older Mac with a four digit model number (i.e. 5200,
 
6300, 7200, 8100, 9600) and any third party computer running Mac
 
OS 8.1 or later.  Mac OS X 10.2 or later are supported but for
 
maximum render speed it is not recommended to use Mac OS X.</p>
 
 
<p>Required hardware and software: Power Macintosh computer with at least 16
 
MB of free RAM. Mac OS 8.6 or newer with CarbonLib 1.0.4 or newer installed
 
CarbonLib 1.0.4. About 20 MB free disk space to install and an additional 5-10
 
MB free space for your own creations (scenes and images). Graphic file viewer
 
utility capable of viewing Mac PICT, GIF and perhaps TGA and PNG formats (the
 
shareware GraphicConverter applications is good.)</p>
 
 
<p>Required POV-Ray files: POVPMAC.SIT or POVPMAC.HQX - a StuffIt archive
 
containing the native Power Macintosh application, sample scenes, standard
 
include files and documentation.</p>
 
 
<p>Recommended: Power Macintosh G3 with 64 MB or more of free RAM. Mac OS
 
9.0.4 or newer with CarbonLib 1.6 (works with Mac OS 8.6 or newer) to access
 
all features of the Mac frontend. CarbonLib 1.6 is available for free download
 
from Apple in the software update section of the Apple website. Color monitor
 
with millions of colors.</p>
 
 
<p>Optional: The source code is not needed to use POV-Ray. It is provided for
 
the curious and adventurous.  POV-Ray can be compiled using Metrowerks
 
CodeWarrior Pro 7.2 (for other compilers no project or make files are provided).
 
Read the file &quot;How to compile!&quot; before compiling.  There is no other support or
 
help for compiling the source code! POVMACS.SIT or POVMACS.HQX - The full C
 
source code for POV-Ray for Macintosh. Contains generic parts and Macintosh
 
specific parts. It does not include sample scenes, standard include files and
 
documentation so you should also get the executable archive as well.</p>
 
 
===Generic Unix===
 
 
<p>
 
<p>
Because Unix runs on a wide variety of hardware and CPUs, the POV-Team
 
cannot provide executable versions for every kind of Unix systems.
 
We distribute a generic, portable C++ source code suitable for running
 
on Unix or Unix-like platforms.
 
 
You will need a recent C++ compiler which follows the ISO C++ standard
 
You will need a recent C++ compiler which follows the ISO C++ standard
as close as possible, and (optionally) the X11 and/or SVGA include files
+
as closely as possible (g++ 4.x is known to work), and (optionally) SVGAlib
and libraries (SVGAlib is for GNU/Linux based systems).
+
for GNU/Linux based systems if you wish to enable render preview display.
Although we provide source code for generic Unix systems, we
 
do not provide technical support on how to compile the program.
 
Support may be obtained from the POV-Ray user community on the
 
dedicated POV-Ray newsgroups (povray.unix at news.povray.org).
 
</p>
 
 
 
<p>Required hardware and software:
 
A UNIX operating system with 32 MB of RAM.
 
A recent C++ compiler, a working make utility and Bourne-compatible shell;
 
see the INSTALL file in the package for details.
 
Graphic file viewer capable of viewing e.g. PNG, TIFF, PPM or TGA formats.
 
A text editor capable of editing plain ASCII text files.
 
 
</p>
 
</p>
  
 
<p>Required POV-Ray files:
 
<p>Required POV-Ray files:
povray-3.6.tgz or povray-3.6.tar.gz - the C++ source code of POV-Ray for UNIX.
+
povray-3.7.tar.bz2 - the C++ source code of POV-Ray for UNIX.
 
Contains generic parts and UNIX/Linux specific parts.  The package includes
 
Contains generic parts and UNIX/Linux specific parts.  The package includes
 
sample scenes, standard include files and documentation in HTML and plain
 
sample scenes, standard include files and documentation in HTML and plain
Line 208: Line 102:
 
</p>
 
</p>
  
<p>Recommended:
+
=====All Versions=====
Math co-processor.
+
<p>All versions of the program share the same ray-tracing features like shapes, lighting and textures. In other words, a Windows PC can create the same pictures as a supercomputer as long as it has enough memory and you are willing to wait enough time.</p>
128 MB (text console) / 256 MB (X Window running a window manager) or more RAM.
 
</p>
 
 
 
<p>Optional:
 
The X Window System (e.g. XFree86) to be able to display the
 
image while rendering.  The X Window System is available on most UNIX
 
platforms nowadays.
 
On GNU/Linux platforms, the SVGAlib library can be an alternative to
 
the X Window System, as it allows to display the rendered image directly
 
on the console screen.
 
</p>
 
 
 
===All Versions===
 
<p>Each executable archive includes full documentation for POV-Ray itself as
 
well as specific instructions for using POV-Ray with your type of platform.
 
All versions of the program share the same ray-tracing features like shapes,
 
lighting and textures. In other words, an MS-Dos-PC can create the same
 
pictures as a Cray supercomputer as long as it has enough memory. The user
 
will want to get the executable that best matches their computer hardware. In
 
addition to the files listed above, the POV-Team also distributes the user
 
documentation in two alternate forms. Note this is the same documentation
 
distributed in other archives but in a different format. This may be
 
especially useful for MS-Dos or Unix users because their documentation is
 
plain ASCII text only. POVUSER.PDF - Tutorial and Reference documentation in
 
Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader available for Windows
 
3.x, Windows 95/98/NT, Mac and some Unix systems. POVHTML.ZIP - Archive
 
containing Tutorial and Reference documentation in HTML for viewing with
 
any internet browser.</p>
 
 
 
<p>See the section &quot;<!--<linkto "Where to Find POV-Ray Files">Where to Find POV-Ray Files</linkto>--->[[Documentation:Tutorial Section 5.1#Where to Find POV-Ray Files|Where to Find POV-Ray Files]]&quot;
 
for where to find these files. You can contact those sources to find out
 
what the best version is for you and your computer.</p>
 
 
 
===Where to Find POV-Ray Files===
 
<p>The latest versions of the POV-Ray software are available from the
 
following sources.</p>
 
 
 
===World Wide Website www.povray.org===
 
<p>
 
The internet home of POV-Ray is reachable on the World Wide Web via the
 
address [http://www.povray.org/ http://www.povray.org/] and via
 
ftp as [ftp://ftp.povray.org/ ftp://ftp.povray.org/]. Please stop by
 
often for the latest files, utilities, news and images from the official
 
POV-Ray internet site. The POV-Team operates its [http://www.povray.org/groups.html own news server] on the
 
internet with several news groups related to POV-Ray and other interesting
 
programs.
 
</p>
 
 
 
===Books, Magazines and CD-ROMs===
 
<p>
 
If you would like to print our documentation, it is available in a number
 
of formats that are designed for printing. In particular, PDF, postscript,
 
and TeX. See the POV-Ray website for more details.
 
</p>
 
  
 +
====Where to Find POV-Ray Files====
 
<p>
 
<p>
Unfortunately all English language books on POV-Ray are out of print and
+
The internet home of POV-Ray is reachable on the World Wide Web at [http://www.povray.org/ http://www.povray.org/].
there are no plans to reprint them. However there are now several POV-Ray
+
There is also an active user community in our [http://www.povray.org/groups.html forums].
books available in Japanese. Many popular computer magazines have been
 
authorized to distribute POV-Ray on cover CD's. From time to time we, the makers
 
of POV-Ray, will ourselves make CDROM's available, either direct from our website
 
or from authorized distributors. See the [http://www.povray.org/ our website]
 
for more information, as that location will always contain the most up-to-date
 
details.
 
 
</p>
 
</p>
  
 
===Suggested Reading===
 
===Suggested Reading===
<p>Beside the POV-Ray material mentioned in &quot;Books, Magazines and
+
<p>Beside the POV-Ray material mentioned in Books, Magazines and
CD-ROMs&quot; there are several good books or periodicals that you should be
+
CD-ROMs, there are several good books or periodicals that you should be
 
able to locate in your local computer book store or your local university
 
able to locate in your local computer book store or your local university
 
library.</p>
 
library.</p>
Line 326: Line 161:
  
 
<p>
 
<p>
The POV-Team <b>no longer recommends</b> books from CRC Press.
+
The POV-Team <strong>no longer recommends</strong> books from CRC Press.
Go read [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/erics_commentary.html Eric's commentary] to find out why.
 
 
</p>
 
</p>
 
<!--<wikinav>--->
 
<!--<wikinav>--->
Line 333: Line 167:
 
<table width=100% border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=5>
 
<table width=100% border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=5>
 
<tr><td width=50% bgcolor=#EEEEEF>
 
<tr><td width=50% bgcolor=#EEEEEF>
[[Documentation:Tutorial Section 5#What to do if you don't have POV-Ray|What to do if you don't have POV-Ray]]</td>
+
[[Documentation:Tutorial Section 5#Thanks|Thanks]]</td>
 
<td width=50% bgcolor=#EEEEEF align=right>
 
<td width=50% bgcolor=#EEEEEF align=right>
 
[[Documentation:Tutorial Table of Contents|Table of Contents]]</td></tr>
 
[[Documentation:Tutorial Table of Contents|Table of Contents]]</td></tr>

Latest revision as of 07:57, 1 July 2017

This document is protected, so submissions, corrections and discussions should be held on this documents talk page.


Appendices

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

This documentation assumes you already have POV-Ray installed and running however the POV-Team does distribute this file by itself in various formats including online on the internet. If you do not have POV-Ray or are not sure you have the official version or the latest version, then the following sections will tell you what to get and where to get it.

Note: We strongly recommend that you obtain POV-Ray directly from the POV-Ray website (or your company/school intranet, if applicable). Some websites have been known to re-package the POV-Ray software in an installer that bundles adware. If the installation package is not signed by Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd., then it is not from us and may have been tampered with. The official installer supplied by us contains no adware or third-party software of any kind.

Which Version of POV-Ray should you use?

POV-Ray can be used under Windows™ XP or newer, x86 Apple™ Macintosh™, and Linux™ & UNIX™ on numerous hardware platforms. See section Where to Find POV-Ray Files for more info.

Older versions of POV-Ray supported many platforms no longer in regular use; we preserve such old versions in our archives if you wish to access them.

If your platform is not supported and you are proficient in compiling source code programs written in C/C++, then you may like to retrieve the source for POV-Ray from our website and attempt to built it yourself.

Microsoft Windows

As of POV-Ray version 3.7 the Windows versions of POV-Ray require Windows XP and later. We have had reports of v3.7 working on Windows 2000 with all service packs installed, however we cannot guarantee that this will remain the case indefinitely, as we do not test against W2K. If you have an older system you may like to look at POV-Ray version 3.6, which works on Windows 95 and up.

We supply both 32 and 64-bit versions of POVWIN which have been tested to run with AMD™ and Intel™ x86 and x64 processors. As of version 3.7, SMP systems are fully supported; by default POVWIN will use all available processing cores when rendering. For 32-bit systems, we supply both non-SSE2 and SSE2-enabled binaries. The installer will determine which is the most appropriate for your system at install time and install shortcuts to that executable (note however all executables are always placed in the bin folder regardless of the platform). For 64-bit systems there is only a single executable - a separate SSE version is not needed as all x64 CPU's have SSE2 available.

We recommend 100mb free disk space (the installation does not require that much, but room for temporary files during rendering is generally required) and at least 1gb free (i.e. available to POV-Ray at runtime) memory. POV's actual RAM requirement can vary greatly; it's possible to render files with as little as 30mb of free RAM, but typical needs are much greater than this. The actual use depends on what SDL files are provided for rendering and the image output options in use. We strongly recommend that you have sufficient RAM for rendering your scene files without resorting to swap - if a render hits the pagefile regularly it will completely destroy rendering performance.

Note: Accelerated graphics hardware (such as 3D cards) will not improve rendering performance. This technology is not currently aimed at raytracing but is, generally speaking, optimized for single-precision scanline rendering as used in games or other simulations. POV-Ray, like all raytracers, requires double-precision floating-point in order to be able to accurately render scenes.

  • Required POV-Ray files: the setup EXE supplied via our download page. This file will be timestamped and digitally signed by Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty Ltd. The key in use at the time of writing is issued by DigiCert and remains current until September 2017. All binaries (DLL's and EXE's) supplied by us for version 3.8 are also signed by this key. If you come across an unsigned binary (or one signed by anyone other than the above) that claims to be an official release, it is not from us and should not be used.
  • Optional: The source code is not needed to use POV-Ray. It is provided for the curious and adventurous. See the source-code links on our download page.

Note: System admins/lab techs who wish to do custom installs of POV-Ray for Windows should refer to the windows platform-specific documentation for more details.

Apple Macintosh

Documentation Pending

Linux/Unix

Because Linux/Unix run on a wide variety of hardware, the POV-Team cannot provide executable versions for every variation. Instead, we distribute a generic, portable C++ source code package suitable for generating binaries on Unix or Unix-like platforms. It is known to compile and run correctly on recent versions of GNU/Linux for x86/x64, and should be fairly straightforward to get running on any POSIX-compliant Unix-like operating system with a Bourne-compatible shell.

You will need a recent C++ compiler which follows the ISO C++ standard as closely as possible (g++ 4.x is known to work), and (optionally) SVGAlib for GNU/Linux based systems if you wish to enable render preview display.

Required POV-Ray files: povray-3.7.tar.bz2 - the C++ source code of POV-Ray for UNIX. Contains generic parts and UNIX/Linux specific parts. The package includes sample scenes, standard include files and documentation in HTML and plain text ASCII format.

All Versions

All versions of the program share the same ray-tracing features like shapes, lighting and textures. In other words, a Windows PC can create the same pictures as a supercomputer as long as it has enough memory and you are willing to wait enough time.

Where to Find POV-Ray Files

The internet home of POV-Ray is reachable on the World Wide Web at http://www.povray.org/. There is also an active user community in our forums.

Suggested Reading

Beside the POV-Ray material mentioned in Books, Magazines and CD-ROMs, there are several good books or periodicals that you should be able to locate in your local computer book store or your local university library.

  1. "An Introduction to Ray tracing" Andrew S. Glassner (editor)
    ISBN 0-12-286160-4; Academic Press; 1989
  2. "Realistic Image Synthesis Using Photon Mapping" Henrik Wann Jensen
    ISBN: 1568811470; AK Peters; July 2001
  3. "3D Artist" Newsletter, "The Only Newsletter about Affordable PC 3D Tools and Techniques")
    Publisher: Bill Allen; P.O. Box 4787; Santa Fe, NM 87502-4787; (505) 982-3532
  4. "Image Synthesis: Theory and Practice" Nadia Magnenat-Thalman and Daniel Thalmann;
    Springer-Verlag; 1987
  5. "The RenderMan Companion" Steve Upstill;
    Addison Wesley; 1989
  6. "Graphics Gems" Andrew S. Glassner (editor);
    Academic Press; 1990
  7. "Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics" J. D. Foley and A. Van Dam;
    ISBN 0-201-14468-9; Addison-Wesley 1983
  8. "Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice (2nd Ed.)" J. D. Foley, A. van Dam, J. F. Hughes;
    ISBN 0-201-12110-7; Addison-Wesley; 1990
  9. "Computers, Pattern, Chaos, and Beauty" Clifford Pickover;
    St.Martin's Press;
  10. "SIGGRAPH Conference Proceedings";
    Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics
  11. "IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications"; The Computer Society;
    10662, Los Vaqueros Circle; Los Alamitos, CA 90720

The POV-Team no longer recommends books from CRC Press.


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