The Persistence of Vision Raytracer, or POV-Ray, is 3-dimensional raytracing software that uses text files to tell it where to put objects and effects in a scene. Unlike most raytracing software, POV-Ray does not require you to be skilled at drawing. At its most basic, you tell POV that you want one shape here, another shape there, and you’d like to combine these two simple shapes into a more complex shape, and put it over there. But you do not have to draw the shapes yourself, and you don’t have to draw them in perspective, draw their shadows, draw the light on them, or any of that stuff. The raytracer handles this for you.
You can download POV-Ray, and see the kinds of images it can produce, at the official website: http://www.povray.org/.
- More Information
- The Persistence of Vision web site at http://www.povray.org/ has documentation, tips, tricks, and links to several wonderful resources. The POV-Ray Book Project at http://book.povworld.org/ has a series of projects that guide you to more and more advanced use of POV-Ray. My own Persistence of Text at http://www.hoboes.com/NetLife/POV/ has a handful of detailed projects that guide you through understanding specific concepts in POV-Ray.
