POV-ray POV is a 3-dimensional raytracing engine. It takes information you supply and simulates the way light interacts with the objects you've defined to create stunning 3d pictures and animation. In addition to the process known as "raytracing," newer versions of POV can also use a variant of the process known as "radiosity" to add greater realisim to scenes, particularly those which use diffuse light such as the fluorescent lighting you might find in an office building. The capabilities of POV are very extensive. This is no toy, it can render complex images which are impossible using many commercial packages. POV can simulate many atmospheric and volumetric effects (such as smoke and haze) which are very difficult to duplicate in any but the best commercial programs.

Current Version:   3.1g License Type:   http://www.povray.org/povlegal.html

Home Site: http://www.povray.org/ Source Code Availability:   Yes Available Binary Packages: Debian Package:   Yes, http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages (there are two packages, bare-bones povray and the extended xpvmpov which uses PVM to achieve parallel rendering. Look in non-free in both hamm (2.0) and slink (2.1) directories. Note they are not on the official CDs due to licencing restrictions, but are sometimes found on third party CDs. Both packages contain the Isosurface (ISOPOV) patches.) RedHat RPM Package:   Yes, ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/ (povray-*) Other Packages:   Yes Targeted Platforms: MS-DOS, Windows, Macintosh, Linux and SunOS, Amiga, UNIX Software/Hardware Requirements: X11 or SVGAlib

Other Links: http://www.povray.org/ftp/pub/povray/ (FTP site) Mailing Lists/USENET News Groups: None User Comments: Linux Journal, No.36, April, 1997. See A Screen Shot? (Not Yet)

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