Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer
(POV-Ray)

• 1.0 INTRODUCTION

• 2.0 ABOUT POV-Ray
  • 2.1 PROGRAM DESCRIPTION -- WHAT IS RAY TRACING?
  • 2.2 WHICH VERSION OF POV-Ray SHOULD YOU USE?
    • 2.2.1 IBM-PC AND COMPATIBLES
    • 2.2.2 APPLE MACINTOSH
    • 2.2.3 COMMODORE AMIGA
    • 2.2.4 UNIX AND OTHER SYSTEMS
    • 2.2.5 ALL VERSIONS

  • 2.3 WHERE TO FIND POV-Ray FILES
    • 2.3.1 GRAPHICS DEVELOPER'S FORUM ON COMPUSERVE
    • 2.3.2 PC GRAPHICS AREA ON AMERICA ON-LINE
    • 2.3.3 YOU CAN CALL ME RAY BBS IN CHICAGO
    • 2.3.4 THE GRAPHICS ALTERNATIVE BBS IN EL CERRITO, CA
    • 2.3.5 PI SQUARED BBS MARYLAND
    • 2.3.6 INTERNET

• 3.0 QUICK START
  • 3.1 INSTALLING POV-Ray
  • 3.2 USING SAMPLE SCENES
  • 3.3 COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS
    • 3.3.1 ANTI-ALIASING
    • 3.3.2 BUFFERING
    • 3.3.3 CONTINUING INTERRUPTED TRACE
    • 3.3.4 DISPLAY PREVIEW IMAGE
    • 3.3.5 RENDER PARTIAL IMAGE
    • 3.3.6 FILE OUTPUT TYPE
    • 3.3.7 HEIGHT AND WIDTH OF IMAGE
    • 3.3.8 INPUT AND OUTPUT FILE NAMES
    • 3.3.10 ANIMATION CLOCK VARIABLE
    • 3.3.11 LIBRARY SEARCH PATH
    • 3.3.12 BOUNDING SLABS CONTROL
    • 3.3.13 SYMBOL TABLE SIZE
    • 3.3.14 VERSION COMPATIBILITY MODE
    • 3.3.15 PAUSE WHEN FINISHED
    • 3.3.16 QUALITY SETTINGS
    • 3.3.17 VERBOSE STATISTICS
    • 3.3.18 ALLOW ABORTED RENDERING
  • 3.4 DEFAULT PARAMETER FILE AND ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE
• 4.0 BEGINNING TUTORIAL
  • 4.1 YOUR FIRST IMAGE
    • 4.1.1 THE POV-Ray COORDINATE SYSTEM
    • 4.1.2 ADDING STANDARD INCLUDE FILES
    • 4.1.3 PLACING THE CAMERA
    • 4.1.4 DESCRIBING AN OBJECT
    • 4.1.5 ADDING TEXTURE TO AN OBJECT
    • 4.1.6 DEFINING A LIGHT SOURCE
  • 4.2 MORE TEXTURE OPTIONS
    • 4.2.1 SURFACE FINISHES
    • 4.2.2 ADDING BUMPINESS
    • 4.2.3 CREATING COLOR PATTERNS
    • 4.2.4 PRE-DEFINED TEXTURES
  • 4.3 MORE SHAPES
    • 4.3.1 PLANE OBJECT
    • 4.3.2 BOX OBJECT
    • 4.3.3 CONE OBJECT
    • 4.3.4 CYLINDER OBJECT
• 5.0 SCENE DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE REFERENCE
  • 5.1 LANGUAGE BASICS
    • 5.1.1 IDENTIFIERS AND KEYWORDS
    • 5.1.2 COMMENTS
    • 5.1.3 INCLUDE FILES
    • 5.1.4 FLOAT EXPRESSIONS
    • 5.1.5 VECTOR EXPRESSIONS
    • 5.1.6 TRANSFORMATIONS
      • 5.1.6.1 Translate
      • 5.1.6.2 Scale
      • 5.1.6.3 Rotate
      • 5.1.6.4 Transforming Textures and Objects
      • 5.1.6.5 Transformation Order
    • 5.1.7 DECLARE
  • 5.2 OBJECTS
    • 5.2.1 SOLID FINITE PRIMITIVES
      • 5.2.1.1 Spheres
      • 5.2.1.2 Boxes
      • 5.2.1.3 Cylinders
      • 5.2.1.4 Cones
      • 5.2.1.5 Torus
      • 5.2.1.6 Blob
      • 5.2.1.7 Height Fields
    • 5.2.2 FINITE PATCH PRIMITIVES
      • 5.2.2.1 Triangle and Smooth_triangle
      • 5.2.2.2 Bicubic_patch
      • 5.2.2.3 Disc
    • 5.2.3 INFINITE SOLID PRIMITIVES
      • 5.2.3.1 Plane
      • 5.2.3.2 Quadric
      • 5.2.3.3 Poly, Cubic and Quartic.
    • 5.2.4 CONSTRUCTIVE SOLID GEOMETRY (CSG)
      • 5.2.4.1 About CSG
      • 5.2.4.2 Inside and outside
      • 5.2.4.3 Union
      • 5.2.4.4 Intersection
      • 5.2.4.5 Difference
      • 5.2.4.6 Merge
    • 5.2.5 LIGHT SOURCES
      • 5.2.5.1 Point Lights
      • 5.2.5.2 Spotlights
      • 5.2.5.3 Area Lights
      • 5.2.5.4 Looks_like
  • 5.3 OBJECT MODIFIERS
    • 5.3.1 CLIPPED_BY
    • 5.3.2 BOUNDED_BY
    • 5.3.3 NO_SHADOW
  • 5.4 TEXTURES
    • 5.4.1 PIGMENT
      • 5.4.1.1 Color
      • 5.4.1.2 Color List Patterns -- checker and hexagon
      • 5.4.1.3 Color Mapped Patterns
        • 5.4.1.3.1 Gradient
        • 5.4.1.3.2 Color Maps
        • 5.4.1.3.3 Marble
        • 5.4.1.3.4 Wood
        • 5.4.1.3.5 Onion
        • 5.4.1.3.6 Leopard
        • 5.4.1.3.7 Granite
        • 5.4.1.3.8 Bozo
        • 5.4.1.3.9 Spotted
        • 5.4.1.3.10 Agate
        • 5.4.1.3.11 Mandel
        • 5.4.1.3.12 Radial
      • 5.4.1.4 Image Maps
        • 5.4.1.4.1 Specifying an image map.
        • 5.4.1.4.2 The "once" option.
        • 5.4.1.4.3 The "map_type" option.
        • 5.4.1.4.4 The "filter" options.
        • 5.4.1.4.5 The "interpolate" option.
      • 5.4.1.5 Pigment Modifiers
        • 5.4.1.5.1 Turbulence
        • 5.4.1.5.2 Octaves
        • 5.4.1.5.3 Omega
        • 5.4.1.5.4 Lambda
        • 5.4.1.5.5 Quick_color
        • 5.4.1.5.6 Frequency and Phase
        • 5.4.1.5.7 Transforming pigments
    • 5.4.2 NORMAL
      • 5.4.2.1 Bumps
      • 5.4.2.2 Dents
      • 5.4.2.3 Ripples
      • 5.4.2.4 Waves
      • 5.4.2.5 Wrinkles
      • 5.4.2.6 Bump_map
        • 5.4.2.6.1 Specifying a bump map.
        • 5.4.2.6.2 Bump_size
        • 5.4.2.6.3 Use_index & use_color
        • 5.4.2.6.4 The "once" option.
        • 5.4.2.6.5 The "map_type" option.
        • 5.4.2.6.6 The "interpolate" option.
      • 5.4.2.7 Normal Modifiers
        • 5.4.2.7.1 Turbulence
        • 5.4.2.7.2 Frequency and Phase
        • 5.4.2.7.3 Transforming normals
    • 5.4.3 FINISH
      • 5.4.3.1 Diffuse Reflection Items
        • 5.4.3.1.1 Diffuse
        • 5.4.3.1.2 Brilliance
        • 5.4.3.1.3 Crand Graininess
        • 5.4.3.1.4 Ambient
      • 5.4.3.2 Specular Reflection Items
      • 5.4.3.3 Highlights
        • 5.4.3.3.1 Phong Highlights
        • 5.4.3.3.2 Specular Highlight
        • 5.4.3.3.3 Metallic Highlight Modifier
      • 5.4.3.4 Refraction
    • 5.4.4 SPECIAL TEXTURES
      • 5.4.4.1 Tiles
      • 5.4.4.2 Material_Map
        • 5.4.4.2.1 Specifying a material map.
        • 5.4.4.2.2 Material_map options.
    • 5.4.5 LAYERED TEXTURES
    • 5.4.6 DEFAULT TEXTURE
  • 5.5 CAMERA
    • 5.5.1 LOCATION AND LOOK_AT
    • 5.5.2 THE SKY VECTOR
    • 5.5.3 THE DIRECTION VECTOR
    • 5.5.4 UP AND RIGHT VECTORS
      • 5.5.4.1 Aspect Ratio
      • 5.5.4.2 Handedness
    • 5.5.5 TRANSFORMING THE CAMERA
    • 5.5.6 CAMERA IDENTIFIERS
  • 5.6 MISC FEATURES
    • 5.6.1 FOG
    • 5.6.2 MAX_TRACE_LEVEL
    • 5.6.3 MAX_INTERSECTIONS
    • 5.6.4 BACKGROUND
    • 5.6.5 THE #VERSION DIRECTIVE

• APPENDIX A COMMON QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

• APPENDIX B TIPS AND HINTS
  • B.1 SCENE DESIGN
  • B.2 SCENE DEBUGGING TIPS
  • B.3 ANIMATION
  • B.4 TEXTURES
  • B.5 HEIGHT FIELDS
  • B.6 FIELD-OF-VIEW
  • B.7 CONVERTING "HANDEDNESS"

• APPENDIX C SUGGESTED READING

• APPENDIX D LEGAL INFORMATION

• APPENDIX D CONTACTING THE AUTHORS

This document details the use of the Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer (POV-
Ray) and is broken down into several sections.

The first section describes the program POV-Ray, explains what ray tracing 
is and also describes where to find the latest version of the POV-Ray 
software.

The next section is a quick start that helps you quickly begin to use the 
software.

After the quick start is a more in-depth tutorial for beginning POV-Ray 
users.

Following the beginning tutorial is a scene description language reference 
that describes the language used with POV-Ray to create an image.

The last sections include some tips and hints, suggested reading, and legal 
information.

POV-Ray is based on DKBTrace 2.12 by David Buck & Aaron A. Collins