Development Status (November 2024)

After a long break in releases of 3.8 beta test candidates, development is resuming, though not at the pace of past releases. That said, we hope to have a 3.8 release ready before the end of the year.

One impediment we have yet to overcome is code signing for the Windows platform. Currently we have no means of doing so as our previous key has expired. The difficulty is both cost and the need for flexibility in verifying us as an organization. Despite the fact that we have a company registered in Australia (Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.) and it is visible on the ASIC website, it is our experience that the verification process gets hung up by the fact the company doesn't sell anything, have a street address, or have a phone number.

While we do not generally sign beta releases, it is our policy that official releases for the Windows platform are expected to be signed.

DKBTrace (foundation of POV-Ray) creator has kickstarter for educational IDE

David K. Buck - the creator of DKBTrace, the pioneering raytracer that was the genesis of POV-Ray - has created a KickStarter campaign to fund creation of an open-source IDE for PigeonTalk (PigeonTalk is a smalltalk implementation created by David that is aimed at being a programming environment to explore computing).

"I chose Smalltalk as a language because it provides the most immersive experience I've encountered. Smalltalk allows you to create, use, and explore software in a very hands-on way. It's an ideal environment for learning and playing with software. This Kickstarter project is to provide a development environment for this Smalltalk which I'm calling PigeonTalk. The development environment would run in a web browser and would communicate with the Smalltalk engine using WebSockets. Once this is available, PigeonTalk becomes a viable programming environment that others could use."

We wish David the best in this endeavor and are hopeful the Kickstarter will meet its goal as POV-Ray itself would not exist if it were not for David's kind contribution of the DKBTrace source code.

POV-Ray v3.8.0 beta tests available

POV-Ray 3.8 is now in beta-test. You may obtain beta releases via our GitHub repository. Discussion regarding the betas should be directed to the beta-test group in our forums.

POV-Ray turns 30

30 years ago today, on July 29 1991, the first beta of what would become POV-Ray became available in the GRAPHDEV forum on CompuServe. See "The Early History of POV-Ray", "The Original Creation Message", "The Name" and "A Historic Version History" in our v3.6 documentation for more details about the early days of this project.

Wiki back online

The POV-Wiki is now back online and is running the latest version of MediaWiki. Additionally we have restored our legacy bugtracker, which tracked issues prior to moving our source code to GitHub.

Forums back online
Following more recovery work since the server crash we're happy to say our user forums are now back online in read-write mode.[March 28, 2021]

Server Recovery

The www.povray.org site is now back in read-write mode. User logins should work, however please note the forums are still offline.

We'd like to give a massive THANKS! to Netplex for going above and beyond in getting us back up on new hardware.

POV-Ray Server Downtime

Our server recently experienced a catastrophic hardware failure, resulting in the need for a replacement and recovery from backup.

No data has been lost but as the new system uses a newer version of PHP and MySQL, plus has other related changes, the restoration will be done in steps. Currently the site is running in read-only mode without a database. We will restore services as soon as we can.

Please note this also affects other sites hosted here such as news.povray.org and irtc.org. We will bring them back up once the main site is back to normal.

Blender to Persistence of Vision
The Blender to Persistence of Vision add-on's next release is slated for August 2nd 2020. See also: next day live Q&A session [August 01, 2020]

white_dune VRML/X3D editor adds POV-Ray export

The folks at the open-source white_dune 3d editor project let us know that they've added POV-Ray export capability. Neat! It looks like a useful tool, definitely worth checking out.

You can find their github repo here or if you prefer you can go straight to their project website for downloads.

Call for papers: Ray Tracing Gems

Eric Haines dropped us a line to let us know that there is still time to submit proposals to Ray Tracing Gems, with the final deadline being final October 15th 2018.

Eric also commented "They don't have to be about DXR, they could be survey or reference articles, or general principles worth writing down in one spot. We hope people will contact us informally about ideas for proposals before the paper deadline."

POV-Ray 3.7.1 enters beta phase

POV-Ray 3.7.1 has officially entered public beta testing phase.

Source code and a Windows installer can be found on our GitHub repository. For more information and feedback please visit the povray.beta-test newsgroup (also accessible via our web interface).

An unofficial Mac version can once again be found on megapov.inetart.net.

Converting POV-Ray scenes into 3D-printable STL meshes

Former POV-Ray developer and team coordinator Chris Young has been working with 3D printing in recent times and wanted to be able to convert a POV-Ray scene into something that he could touch & feel. This isn't as easy as it sounds since POV-Ray works with solids but consumer 3D printers expect triangle meshes.

He has written a blog post explaining the issue and how he approached it, and another interesting and quite detailed post explaining the process he used to get from .POV to .STL.

Chris has made his pov2mesh code available on GitHub under the Creative Commons license.

POV-Ray turns 25 (or 30)
It was "back in 1986 or so" that David K. Buck started work on DKBTrace, and it was in July 1991 that the first version of its successor project saw the light of day. What was then called STAR-Light, and later renamed to PV-Ray and ultimately POV-Ray, has therefore been on this planet for a whopping 9,190 (or 11,000) revolutions by now (plus another guesstimated 150 above it). Of course we faithfully continue our effort to keep it that way, and although this website has been rather silent since the official release of POV-Ray 3.7.0 in November 2013, that's only because work has been proceeding elsewhere:

• Ever since the 3.7.0 release, development has been revolving around or GitHub repository.
• Pre-release builds are also published there, on a semi-irregular basis, in the releases section.
• The most up-to-date documentation is being maintained on our Wiki.

Python modeller for POV-Ray
As an alternative to POV-Ray's inbuilt scene description language, Laurent Evian has developed the free "Pycao" tool to describe scenes using the Python language. For details, see Laurent's website.[August 31, 2016]

Routing problems for some users in Sweden and Finland

We've become aware that since late November 2015 some visitors in the Scandinavian region have been unable to access povray.org and its related sites via their broadband connection, but find that when using a mobile connection the site works fine.

This issue affects visitors whose ISP's rely on TeliaSonera for transit or routing information (while there may be other backbone providers affected, we have not received examples other than Telia). Basically Telia are not receiving (or not accepting, we are not sure which) routing information for the network that povray.org is hosted on (203.29.75.0/24, advertised on AS6062).

At this point the matter is out of our hands as it involves backbone providers and how they exchange BGP routing information. The issue has been brought to the attention of providers in both the USA (where our network is hosted) and Sweden, and we can only wait to see if or when they will resolve it.

Please also note that affected visitors will probably not be able to successfully email us regarding the issue if they use their ISP-provided email accounts as these will generally use the same routing tables as used for general web browsing. Using GMail or other non-ISP-specific services ought to work.

We will update this post as more information becomes available.

Update: As of July/August 2016 this issue seems to have cleared up.

POV-Ray 3.7 released
POV-Ray version 3.7 has now been officially released. Please see our download page for more information.[November 08, 2013]

Lathe and Prism Utility Available

Epspline (as in Edit-Povray-SPLINE) is a utility for POV-Ray users: a simple 2D graphical editor of lathe and prism objects. Visit the website for download links, and a few samples.

Viewshed Analysis with POV-Ray
A viewshed is an area that is visible from a specific location. Viewshed analyses are a common function of most GIS software. See this blog post for more information.

POV-Ray Helps Visualize Bee Keeper Data

See this blog post to read more about how POV-Ray was used to visualize bee keeper data for Norfolk County Massachusetts.

POV-Ray, Export & View, for Mathematica

For use with Mathematica. View or animate in front-end or otherwise. Has a partially supported POV-Ray exporter. See their website for more details.

Koppi's Bullet Physics Playground

Filling containers with objects has just gotten a whole lot easier! POV-Ray users can now easily fill containers, or place many objects, with collision checking, into their scenes. The application has a rudimentary POV-Ray export feature, so some post-processing is necessary. See the website to get started!

Parallella supercomputer kickstarter nearing end

The Parallela platform seems to have potential in the future for use with raytracing as Adapteva are coming out with a double-precision version early in 2013. Given their kickstarter is approaching its end date and they are still a little bit short of their target we thought we'd mention this in case any POV users are interested in it.

Once the appropriate hardware is available the POV team will take a close look at it to see if it's a suitable target for a port of our software.

Spectral Rendering with POV-Ray

Users can now do Spectral Rendering with POV-Ray. For more details, see the contributors website for a description of how the process works, and all the Scene Description Language files that you will need to get started!

ANIMUSIC 3 kickstarter campaign in its last week

While not directly related to POV-Ray, many POV-Ray users will nevertheless be familiar with the ANIMUSIC series of renderings synced to music. Many of us think it's rather neat :-). If you've never seen their work before, check out this demo video, or the below kickstarter page (where they give a little more info about their rendering pipeline).

They are in the last week of a kickstarter campaign to enable the completion of the third release in the series, and have 75% of the funding needed. For those not familiar with kickstarter, they will only receive the pledges if they meet their target by the end of the campaign (which is September 5).

If you are interested in this sort of work you can pre-purchase ANIMUSIC 3 (or make a pledge) via their kickstarter campaign page.

Update of Insert Menus Add-on

The popular Insert Menus Add-on by Friedrich Lohmueller has been updated. See the download page. A collection of shape macros was also extended. Since these shapes are integrated into the add-on, look here for more details.[August 17, 2012]

Caedium Version 4 Available

Caedium can now simulate free surface flows using a volume of fluid Computational Fluid Dynamics solver. View this animation rendered with POV-Ray, or visit their website for more details.

Another PoseRay Update

The main changes include some AMD video fixes, very basic SSLT support. There were also some miscellaneous bug fixes. It's compatible with POV-Ray 3.7 RC6. You can download it here!

Making of a Rose

This HD video animation by Robert Alzinger was rendered entirely with POV-Ray. It features a demonstration of several Constructive Solid Geometry techniques. See the website to view his clever presentation

Colored Leaves

Regular news group readers have already seen the colored leaves trick by Norbert Kern, so in case you missed it, here's the discussion ... there's also a sample scene file.

PoseRay Beta Release

A versatile application that should be in every POV'ers work-flow has a new beta release. It's compatible with POV-Ray 3.7 RC3, so see their website for more details.

Four POV-Ray-created Music Videos on DVD

Former POV-Ray developer Eduward Schwan has released a DVD containing four POV-Ray-generated music videos.

"Journey through four different surreal worlds, each one offering artistically-crafted computer-animated scenes, some playful, some mysterious, all thought-provoking. Each video has its own original music soundtrack composed to go hand-in-hand with the video experience. The computer-generated ray-traced videos were designed bit-by-bit (and the music note-by-note) by SchwanSongs for your enjoyment."

POV-Ray work by Holger Karsten

Long-time POV-Ray user, Holger Karsten, has recently created a blog of graphical work and experiments with POV-Ray. Check out his site at lightspeed.byethost24.com!

Y.A.P.R.M. 0.7.1 released

A new release of Y.A.P.R.M., "Yet Another POV-Ray Modeller", has been released. 0.7.1 is a bug fix release to correct many small issues and to introduce some enhancements for usability. Joëlle Cornavin has contributed a French translation and Debian packages will follow in the next few days.

HTTPov updated

HTTPov, a distributed rendering system for POV-Ray which runs over HTTP, has been updated to include new features and a new Python client. Also supports the POV-Ray 3.7 beta.

Blender Project Needs Help
Some of you may not know this, but the latest release of Blender has a POV-Ray exporter. Interested POV veterans that know how to program in Python should consider getting involved. This could be a great way to raise POV-Rays profile, by exposing it to more users. See their wiki for more details.[January 04, 2011]

Leveller 4.0 Available
The Leveller heightfield modeler has been updated. Version 4.0 (Windows ONLY) includes true 3D scene objects, contour lines, elevation labeling, cut/fill analysis, cross section reporting, shape texturing, etc. and exports formats suitable for use with the POV-Ray height_field object. [December 05, 2010]

LionSnake v1.7.16

A new version of LionSnake is now available, and you can get it here. Note: The download host has changed.

Penrose tessellation in POV-Ray

Maurizio Paolini and Alessandro Musesti of the Department of Mathematics and Physics, Catholic University of Brescia, Italy, have created an interesting 15 minute animation in POV-Ray showing properties of the Penrose tessellation. Check out the Matroska 1280x720 render at the Animated Penrose Tiling website (video available in multiple languages).

Faster CFD as Caedium goes Parallel
For details see the press release. See also this example of a Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulation performed in Caedium and rendered by POV-Ray.[August 10, 2010]

Bishop3D 1.0.5.0
Bishop3D, a POV-Ray modeler and animation system for MS-Windows platform, is proud to announce the release of Bishop3D 1.0.5.0 This new release includes a long-waited Texture Library Manager, a new plugin for creating grass patches (inspired by Gilles Tran MakeGrass macro) as well as general improvements and bug fixes. Visit the "new look" Bishop3D website for more information.[August 03, 2010]

Version 3.3 of SU2POV (Sketchup to POV-Ray converter) available

Version 3.3 of SU2POV is now available.

SU2POV is a freeware converter to export SketchUp models to POV-Ray. It has been designed so few actions are necessary to run POV-Ray and generate images of your SketchUp models. It runs on PC and Macintosh platforms.

LionSnake 1.7.15

A new release of the LionSnake modeller is now available. The latest version includes several bug fixes and many enhancements to allow easier editing. A complete list of changes can be found on the new LionSnake website.

Visualization Library
Visualization Library is a C++ middleware for high-performance 2D and 3D graphics applications based on the industry standard OpenGL 2.1, designed to develop portable applications for the Windows, Linux and Mac OS X operating systems.[June 03, 2010]

Australian Internet Censorship

Not ray-tracing related, but given the POV-Ray project's home base is Australia, we'll mention the ongoing plan to introduce mandatory internet censorship by the Australian Government. The EFA has a new campaign titled "It's Time to Tell Mum" which highlights a few points that the average internet user might not realize. One of the things to be particularly aware of is that the filter will not just cover illegal material, but any "unwanted content" (quoted from Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Communications, Nov 11 2009).

It's not clear what "unwanted content" is to be defined as (other than it doesn't include illegal material, since that's covered separately), and given the list of sites to be blocked will be secret, it may be hard to figure out.

Other links: Electronic Frontiers Australia, Stephen Conroy [satiric site], Senator Scott Ludlam [official site].

Jupiter Loses a Stripe
Lost: A giant belt of brown clouds big enough to swallow Earth twenty times over.[June 03, 2010]

OGRE 1.7.1
Since 2001, OGRE has grown to become one of the most popular open-source graphics rendering engines, and has been used in a large number of production projects. Check out the first maintenance release to the new 1.7 stable branch codenamed Cthugha.[June 03, 2010]

E-on Software Ships Vue 8.5
e-on software, maker of the leading solutions for Digital Nature, announced today the immediate availability of Vue 8.5 xStream and Infinite, its professional solutions for the creation, animation and rendering of natural 3D environments. [June 03, 2010]

Solar Dynamics Observatory
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is beaming back stunning new images of the sun, revealing our own star as never seen before![June 03, 2010]

Bishop3D 1.0.4.4
A new version of Bishop3D, a POV-Ray modeler and animation system for MS-Windows platform, is available. This new release includes an improved CSG evaluator, and a graphics card compatibility fix.[April 16, 2010]

Insert Menu Add-on for POV-Ray
An new update of Friedrich Lohmullers' insert add-on menu for POV-Ray 3.6.2/3.7 is now available. For more details and download visit the website.[June 03, 2010]

Ani2Pov v0.91 is available
A new version of Ani2Pov is available. The new version fixes bugs with weights of figures having several meshes.[April 13, 2010]

DAZ 3D-Gizmoz Introduces Digimi
Digimi the ultimate platform for generating personalized avatars. Leveraging the collaboration of existing technologies from DAZ 3D and Gizmoz, Digimi offers a premier solution for complete avatar customization that extends creative possibilities toward developers of games, online worlds and real-time environments.[June 03, 2010]

OpenTK Library 1.0 RC1
The OpenTK is an advanced, low-level C# library that wraps OpenGL, OpenCL and OpenAL. It is suitable for games, scientific applications and any other project that requires 3d graphics, audio or compute functionality.[June 03, 2010]

PoseRay 3.13.3 beta

PoseRay is an utility to convert 3D model meshes into POV-Ray scenes, Moray UDO files or Kerkythea meshes. This beta version includes all the changes up to this date, and it was also tested to work with POV-Ray 3.7 ... Visit the site for more details.

Y.A.P.R.M version 0.7 released
After more than a year of hard work Y.A.P.R.M version 0.7 has been released. Featuring a greatly improved user interface, and work flow improvements. See the Yet Another POV-Ray Modeller site for more information.[March 20, 2010]

Rhino for OS X is in development

During development, pre-release Rhino OS X is free to anyone willing to provide feedback. Visit their site for more information.

Sculptris
Sculptris is a work-in-progress sculpting tool that's been in development since early December 2009. Its main feature is dynamic mesh tessellation that will provide additional detail where necessary, without the user needing to worry about it. [March 12, 2010]

LionSnake 1.7.14 hosting change
After the demise of GeoCites LionSnake is now hosted on a new server.[June 03, 2010]

Caedium (formerly SymLab) now available on the Mac

The latest release of Caedium (v2.1) from Symscape now supports Mac OS X (10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard) in addition to Windows and Linux. With this release Caedium becomes one of the few (maybe the only) commercial CFD analysis tools with a rich interactive GUI to run as a native application on the Mac. Functionally the Mac version is identical to the Windows and Linux versions of Caedium, so engineers can choose their most productive platform to perform CFD simulations and export directly to the POV-Ray SDL format and create high quality ray-traced images.

• see the complete press release
• for an example of a CFD simulation rendered by POV-Ray.

TC-RTC Tribute

The latest TC-RTC topic is an open one with the title “A Tribute to Steve Paget”. The site can be found here. We would love to receive entries from those of us that remember him. Jewelry would be particularly appropriate as would something on the theme of “always look on the bright side of life”. As suggested by Colin, Steve’s friend and developer of the site. The winning image will be sent to Steve’s sister.

Y.A.P.R.M. 0.7 RC1 released

After almost a year the first release candidate of "Yet Another POV-Ray Modeller" 0.7 is available, featuring a switch to gtkmm, reworked look and feel and more efficient modelling process.

SymLab RANS Flow

Symscape's commercial range of simulation products has now been expanded to include SymLab RANS Flow for the simulation of realistic (viscous) gas and liquid flow with heat transfer. SymLab's viewer utility can, with the Viz Export add-on, directly output POV-Ray SDL. Examples of POV-Ray exports are available on their site.

But where is the shallow end?

French mathematician Xavier Caruso and Jos Leys have used POV-Ray to explain three common effects of refraction in their short film "But where is the shallow end?". It's released under Creative Commons license and can be viewed online here.

Bishop3D Distribution Release

Bishop3D, a Windows-based dedicated modeller for POV-Ray with SDL import, texture editor and native keyframe animation, has now reached its first distribution release. Bishop3D has been several years in the making and has a promising future with a new development cycle of enhancements and additions now beginning. Comments and discussion are encouraged on the Bishop3D forum. Download it now to give it a try!

LionSnake 1.7.14

LionSnake modeller has received a number of new features and updates including more advanced subdivision previews and face editing. For a complete list of changes and bug fixes, visit the LionSnake site. Feedback regarding performance from Vista and Wine users is appreciated.

Bishop3D reaches Release Candidate milestone

After more than two years of beta testing, Bishop3D, an interactive modeller and animation tool for POV-Ray, with native keyframe animation, POV-Ray SDL import, texture editor and POV-Ray integration has reached Release Candidate. You can download the RC now from the Bishop3D site!

Myst-like Java game using POV-Ray

Gil writes to tell us of his quest to develop a Myst-like Java game with graphics made using POV-Ray. Those interested in helping should visit the Amazon Systems blog.

neXtgen Povray Editor 0.9.5

The neXtgen POV-Ray Editor has been updated with new features like gamma correction in the colour picker (for clipka), rendering with ini profiles and bug fixes.

LionSnake 1.7.13

A new version of the subdivision surface LionSnake Modeler is available, fixing a .obj import crash and a bug where Bones were not being displayed. The latest version, including source code, is available from the LionSnake site.

LionSnake 1.7.12

The subdivision surface LionSnake Modeler has been updated. The latest version includes new display and editing enhancements such as better subdivision preview, bones editing, anti-aliasing, etc. A full list of changes and download links can be found on the LionSnake site.

Ani2Pov 0.57 is available

A new version of Ani2Pov, the .an8 Anim8or (a free modeller) to POV-Ray, Ase, Videoscape and Milkshape 3D convertor, is now available. The new version fixes several problems with the orientations/positions of elements.

XPE v0.9.4

The neXtgen POV-Ray Editor (XPE) v0.9.4 has been released (source tarball, various Linux distros, Windows). neXtgen is code editor designed specifically for POV-Ray SDL and can be downloaded from SourceForge. Documentation for configuring the editor is also available.

Y.A.P.R.M. 0.6.5 released

A new version of "Yet Another POV-Ray Modeller" is available with bug fixes, a new interactive 3D View viewport (allowing you to view your scene from any angle and assign the current view to the active camera), a wider range of 3D file formats supported for import and inline editing of objects.

Sphere Sweep Tutorial

An excellent tutorial on using the sphere_sweep object has been made available. The Sphere Sweep Tutorial (also available in German) provides a general introduction followed by increasingly more complex applications of the object, with illustrated examples, code and scene files.

Animation Palace

A new POV-Ray animation website has appeared with some interesting animation projects. The site, Animation Palace, has downloadable projects you can render, as well as examples and other interesting info.

New hard disks needed

The POV-Ray server needs two new hard disks. Currently the system is running on a single drive with no redundancy. Our plan is to upgrade to a set of mirrored drives using the two new disks, with the current drive running as a backup unit. We've set up an amazon.com wishlist for this purpose, in case anyone wishes to donate the hardware required.

Update: The disks are on their way. Thanks very much to those who ordered them!

Bishop3D 1.0.2.8 beta

Bishop3D, the interactive Windows modeler and animation tool with native POV-Ray SDL import and keyframe animation, has been updated. The new beta includes improvements and bug fixes and is available for download now.

LionSnake 1.7.11

A new update of the subdivision surface LionSnake Modeler is available. This release fixes some bugs and includes improvements to Bones editing and representation.

POV-Ray for Windows v3.7 beta 27

The Win32 build of POV-Ray version 3.7 beta 27 is now available. This is the first in the POVWIN beta series to have a full installer (provided as a Microsoft Installer .MSI file). While not a final version of the installer (currently it only installs for one user), it's a step in the right direction. The beta should be much more Vista-friendly as a result of this and some internal changes to the location files are stored.

GDesign 2.0 - L-Systems and Cellular Automata

GDesign, a 2D/3D L-System program to generate complex fractal, organic and inorganic objects for POV-Ray and 3D Studio MAX, has now reached version 2.0. The new version includes many new features, such as a better display and interface, new objects, interactive rules, improved language grammar and symbols, automatic behaviours and new image processing 3D filters.

In addition to a gallery of examples, the GDesign website includes new documentation for the program and information on L-Systems.

Dimensions: A two hour movie made in POV-Ray!

Jos Leys, working with Etienne Ghys and Aurélien Alvarez (both mathematicians from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Lyon, France) produced a two hour movie in POV-Ray which explores in beautiful visuals the concepts of dimensions and mathematics.

View the trailer, then head over to the Dimensions website where you can download all 9 chapters or purchase it on DVD for the very reasonable price of 10 Euros (which, as a non-profit project, covers the cost of production and includes worldwide shipping!). The project is released under a Creative Commons license (see site for details).

A spoken commentary is available in French, English, Spanish and Arabic on both the DVD and the downloads, with subtitles provided in Arabic, Dutch, Chinese, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian. Instructions on how to use the subtitles are available on the website, which also includes pages with more detailed explanations on the topics in the different chapters of the project.

Check out and support this fantastic project and send in some feedback and comments!

PovEdge released - draw edges and creases of mesh objects

PovEdge, a new tool for rendering the edges of POV-Ray mesh objects (allowing for the creation of various drawing, sketch-like and cartoon styles) has been released by Thibaut Jonckheere. PovEdge combines a Windows application and POV-Ray macros to create the final edge geometry, with control over silhouette and crease edges. A complete set of examples, instructions, tips/tricks and technical information is available on the PovEdge website.

Ani2Pov 0.5 released, new file format support

Version 0.50 of the Anim8or (a free modeller) .an8 to POV-Ray file converter, Ani2Pov, is now available. This new version supports files created with the Anim8or v0.97 Preview release, conversion to POV-Ray, .ase and Videoscape .obj (for use in, for example, Blender).

Additionally, the source code is now available under the GPL v3 licence and Ani2Pov utilises WinForms (and thus requires the .NET framework). A Linux version will be available in the future and contributions to the project (as well as bug reports) are encouraged. See the Ani2Pov site for more details.

Y.A.P.R.M. 0.6 released

A new version of "Yet Another POV-Ray Modeller" is available, featuring saving of view port setups, command line parameters, inclusion of Imlib2 (for improved colour selection) and image importing. Additionally several memory leaks have been fixed.

POV-Ray df3 import/export for ImageJ

Stephan Saalfeld has developed an ImageJ import/export plugin for POV-Ray's df3 format. ImageJ, a Java-based image processing program developed by the National Institutes of Health, can be used to edit volumetric data supported by thousands of freely available plugins. This ImageJ plugin adds seamless support for the POV-Ray's df3 format for arbitrary volumetric density functions and turns ImageJ into a powerful df3 editor.

Tkxture - Fast POV-Ray patterned material textures

A new utility for Linux and Windows, Tkxture, has been released. Tkxture allows for the rapid creation of POV-Ray textures, especially those involving patterns, with the ability to specify finish, interior, warp and other parameters and easily preview the result.

LionSnake 1.7.10

A new version of subdivision surface LionSnake Modeler has been released. This release includes bug fixes, changes to bones display, texture mapping in subdivision preview and other usability enhancements.

Symscape's SymLab Now Available for Linux

Symscape's free SymLab viewer is now available for Linux as well as Windows. The Linux version has full support for all the SymLab add-ons including SymLab Viz Export with its ability to export to the POV-Ray SDL format.

LionSnake 1.7.9

A bugfix release of LionSnake Modeler is available for download (see the LionSnake site for details).

LionSnake 1.7.8

Subdivision surface LionSnake Modeler now features better viewport zooming functions and increased efficiency in the subdivision previews.

Surface Subdivision Suite updates and LionSnake 1.7.7

New versions of LionSnake and the Surface Subdivision Suite are now available, fixing several bugs. It is recommended that users update to the latest version of each.

LionSnake 1.7.5 available

Another update to the subdivision surface LionSnake Modeler project is now available for download. This update fixes several bugs relating to Bones editing, subdivision macros and mesh editing.

IRTC being resurrected!

David K Buck (creator of DKBTrace which was later used as the basis for POV-Ray), after discussions with Chris Cason and the community, is pleased to announce the assembly of a group of developers to resurrect the dormant Internet Ray Tracing Competition!

A bimonthly online rendering competition (which also included concurrent animation rounds), the IRTC ran for more than 10 years until, in late 2006, administrative issues prevented further rounds from being conducted.

The site will now be redesigned by the team of volunteers (which includes David K Buck and Randal Schwartz) to address the issues which led to its cessation. Previous competition entries/results will also be retained on the new site for viewing.

During its hiatus the passion in the community for the IRTC has remained strong, so we look forward to a new era of the IRTC and, of course, great ray tracing creations!

Surface Subdivision Suite updates and LionSnake 1.7.4

Updated versions of John VanSickle's surface subdivision modeller LionSnake and Catmull-Clark Surface Subdivision Suite are now available. The Surface Subdivision Suite update fixes a bug with normal calculations, while LionSnake has seen significant feature additions, speed enhancements and bug fixes (a complete list of which is available on the LionSnake home page).

POV-Ray 3.7 beta source code available

The source code for the 3.7 beta of POV-Ray has been made available for download for Windows and Unix/Linux platforms. The windows source includes easy-to-follow instructions for getting the source built with Visual Studio 2005 and 2008, including express editions, while the Linux/Unix source has similarly clear instructions for GNU C++.

SCC5: POV-Ray Short Code Contest #5 - Winners Announced!

The 5th POV-Ray Short Code Contest, a competition to produce the most artistic animation in a tiny POV-Ray file of no greater than 512 bytes, has now been completed and the winners announced!

Animations of the amazing entries can be found on the POV-Ray Short Code Contest #5 website. In first place, Jeff Reifel's "Rays" animation weighs in at a mere 464 bytes!

Subdivision Surface Macro Suite

An updated version of John VanSickle's Subdivision Surface Macro Suite is now available, supporting polygons with any number of sides, properly subdivided texture mapping and corner behaviour changes. Check the website for examples and further information, along with the related subdivision surface LionSnake Modeler project.

HTTPov distributed rendering via HTTP

2007 brought updates to existing distributed rendering systems, as well as the introduction of brand new ones. HTTPov is one of the latter and is built around an unpatched POV-Ray, designed to be run unobtrusively in the background of plain "unixish" machines as well as Windows with Cygwin. The communication with the central server is done via HTTP allowing greater flexibility, and the system is capable of handling animations as well as sliced still images. Check out the HTTPov website to get started!

A3dsViewer 1.1

A3dsViewer 1.1, a free Windows 3DS file viewer which also exports to POV-Ray, is now available. This release fixes many bugs in the export system and adds diffuse management.

neXtgen POV-Ray Editor Beta 1

The first public release of neXtgen Povray Editor (XPE) is here! XPE is a full-featured code editor for POV-Ray, featuring auto-completion, internal image viewer, syntax highlighting, file explorer, POV-Ray file parser/navigator, rendering console, the ability to open large files without eating large amounts of memory, and much more! Available for Windows, Linux and Mac (contact for Mac binary).

LionSnake 1.6.8

Version 1.6.8 of surface subdivision modeller LionSnake is available with several UV mapping bug fixes. Binaries, source and download instructions can be found on the LionSnake website.

POV-Ray wiki site now active

wiki.povray.org is now open for contributions. POV-Wiki is an officially-sanctioned site that is intended to allow users to contribute to the overall POV-Ray knowledgebase.

See the announcement in povray.general for more details.

SymLab Exchange now supports Alias/Wavefront

Symscape's commercial SymLab Exchange can now import Alias/Wavefront (obj) models; with the SymLab Viz Export add-on it is possible to then export to POV-Ray SDL. SymLab's free 3D fluid-flow simulation viewer utility can, with the Export add-on, also export its results to POV-Ray.

PovClipse 1.0.1 available

1.0.1 of the Eclipse editor plug-in PovClipse for POV-Ray and MegaPOV is now available - use the Eclipse update function to obtain the latest version. This new release includes bug fixes, new entry types, a large performance boost and Render Messages View for jumping directly to error lines. See the PovClipse site for installation instructions and further details.

AmphiSoft POV Sphere Mosaic

AmphiSoft have released a freeware Photoshop plug-in, AmphiSoft POV Sphere Mosaic, for exporting a 3D sphere mosaic of images from Photoshop (and other compatible editors) to POV-Ray SDL.

Moray Modeller - Free Registration

As Moray was acquired by POV-Ray earlier this year, and until a new version is released without a registration system, users may download and register Moray for free using the following details:

Name:	POV-Ray User
Number:	BFDDE769

Please see the Moray announcement for further details.

PovClipse 1.0.0 released

The Eclipse editor plug-in for POV-Ray and MegaPOV, PovClipse, has reached version 1.0.0! Now with a new logo (courtesy Sebastian Sanabria Diaz), project management functions (import/export ZIP, TAR, TGZ), additional render configuration options, outline view and bugfixes, see the PovClipse site for installation instructions and a complete list of changes.

Bishop3D 1.0.1.8 beta

A new beta of the Windows POV-Ray modeller Bishop3D has been made available. Bishop3D supports animation key-framing, SDL import and POV-Ray 3.6 integration. This update includes more bug fixes, improvements to stability and new features.

Y.A.P.R.M. 0.5.6 released

A new intermediate release of "Yet Another POV-Ray Modeller" is available and fixes several bugs, some of which could result in crashes, while also featuring the addition of copy and paste support. The new version can be downloaded from the Y.A.P.R.M. SourceForge page.

[August 22, 2007]

Eduard Schwan - POV-Ray music video

One of the former Macintosh POV-Ray development team members, Eduard Schwan, has recently created a music video (for one of his 80's-styled tracks) using POV-Ray. A low-quality version is available on YouTube. Additionally a DVD version is available with a behind-the-scenes interview and other material, plus a trailer for his next POV-Ray-rendered video, "Fractal Serenity".

Why not get inspired and try creating your own music video too!

PovClipse Logo Challenge - vote for your favourite!

The PovClipse logo challenge submission period is over and the submitted proposals can now be voted on. Head over to the gallery and voting page to vote for your favourite!

Insert Menu Add-on

A new update to Friedrich Lohmueller's "Insert Menu Add-on", a bundle of shapes, isosurfaces, loops, 2D visualisation functions and more for the Windows version of POV-Ray, is now available. With new extended templates for HF-macros, Parametric Surfaces and other additions, the update is well worth downloading. The "Ready-made Objects for POV-Ray" collection continues to grow also, with houses, cars, trucks and more!

K3DSurf 0.6.2

A new release of the mathematical surface modeller K3DSurf is now available. Version 0.6.2 includes a new GUI, performance and OpenGL display enhancements, new examples, config file system and the implementation of a fast mathematical function calculation system. Additionally the K3DSurf Forum is now open for discussion and support.

PovClipse 0.7.2

The Eclipse editor plug-in PovClipse now includes Portuguese support, default include directory settings for POV-Ray and MegaPOV, performance optimisations, bugfixes and more. Use the Eclipse update function, or see the PovClipse site for installation instructions and a complete list of changes.

GDesign 1.0

The first version of GDesign ("Generative Design"), an application for creating 2D/3D objects using DOL, stochastic, parametric and context-sensitive L-systems, has been released. GDesign exports to POV-Ray and a gallery of POV-Ray renderings shows some of the possibilities of this interactive L-system design tool.

PoseRay 3.11.0

The object format converter/renderer PoseRay, useful for converting various formats to POV-Ray SDL, has received another update with numerous changes, fixes and additions.

Instant-Grid 1.0

Version 1.0 of Instant-Grid, a Knoppix-based live Linux system for easily building computing grids, has now been released. Instant-Grid contains a PHP-based front-end and "Portlet" which facilitate distributed rendering with POV-Ray, for both single images and animations.

Some examples of POV-Ray use in Chemistry

Milo's ChemicalMusings blog is featuring some examples of his use of POV-Ray over the years (since 2.0). He also has some basic background on how to use POV with PovChem. [Permalink]

Using POV-Ray to create slices for 3D sugar printing

Due to the flexibility of its scene description language POV-Ray is routinely applied to a wide variety of tasks which fall outside raytracing photo realistic scenes. From creating technical drawings to visualising physics and medical datasets, the possibilities are only limited by imagination. One such recent creative application drawn to our attention is the use of POV-Ray in creating slices for 3D printing objects in sugar. Delicious!

PovClipse 0.7.1 and Logo Challenge

PovClipse 0.7.1 has been released and features a new "auto save" function, image viewing support for all POV-Ray/MegaPOV image types, render configuration templates and general bugfixes. Use the Eclipse update function to get the new version.

Additionally, a logo challenge has been proposed with the goal of contributing a recognisable logo to the PovClipse project. See the PovClipse website for more details.

SymLab to POV-Ray export add-on released

Symscape's free SymLab 3D fluid-flow simulation viewer utility now supports export to POV-Ray via a new add-on, SymLab Viz Export. (examples are available)

Pigmentator and Texies

A set of useful tools and scripts have been released, including Pigmentator, a GUI tool for preparing colour vectors, maps, etc, and Texies, a small pack of powerful bitmap textures with example scripts.

Y.A.P.R.M. 0.5.5 released

A new version of "Yet Another POV-Ray Modeller" has been released with many general improvements and new objects available, in addition to bug fixes and a wider range of selectable rendering options.

PovClipse 0.7.0

PovClipse has received another update, now with improved help (including optional MegaPOV help), outline view with filtering and more. This Eclipse editor plug-in for POV-Ray scene file editing can be installed or updated by following the instructions on the PovClipse page.

Bishop3D 1.0.1.3 beta

The next beta version of the Windows POV-Ray modeller Bishop3D has been released. Bishop3D supports animation key-framing, SDL import and POV-Ray 3.6 integration. This new version includes bug fixes and general improvements.

POV-Ray for Maya 7.0

Pantheon Studios has released an alpha version of their "POV-Ray for Maya 7.0" export plug-in. The Maya plug-in currently supports exporting meshes (polygons with UVs) and several light types. More information about the project can be found in their earlier news post.

Geomorph - Linux terrain heightfield editor

Geomorph, an advanced terrain heightfield Linux editor for POV-Ray, has been updated. Version 0.40 includes a significant number of new features, such as a new crackle network creation tool, improved rain erosion algorithm, new POV-Ray scripts and new tutorials. A full list of changes can be found on the Geomorph website, in English and French.

PovClipse 0.6.3

A new version of PovClipse, an Eclipse editor plug-in for POV-Ray scene file editing, is now available. New features include MegaPOV support, Spanish and French localisation and new syntax checking. Download and then follow the installation instructions to get started.

LionSnake 1.6.6

Revision 1.6.6 of the surface subdivision modeller LionSnake has been released with a bugfix / performance improvement. Binaries, source and download instructions can be found on the LionSnake website.

A3dsViewer 1.0

A3dsViewer 1.0, a free Windows 3DS file viewer which also exports to POV-Ray, has been released by Apta Graphis. This handy utility is fast and supports several options for object viewing.

Moray acquired by POV; will be re-released as Open Source

The following is a joint announcement from Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd. ('POV'), Lutz Kretzschmar (Lutz) and Markus Lutz (Markus).

Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd. is pleased to advise that it has acquired the rights to the 3d modeller 'Moray' from Lutz and Markus. Moray is a Windows program specifically designed to create 3d models and scenes to be used with the POV-Ray raytracer, and was originally sold as trialware.

POV will, in due course, re-issue Moray under a new name and new license. The license has not been decided on with finality, but will be OSI-approved. [POV is planning to release it under the GPLv3 but this decision is subject of course to review of the final version of that license.]

The POV-Team is continuing development on version 3.7, which is the last planned major release of the current POV-Ray codebase prior to version 4.0.

Version 4.0 will be released under an OSI-approved license. POV has not decided on which license will be chosen at this stage. Those portions of the codebase that are not already re-releasable under an OSI license will, prior to the release of 4.0, be re-written so as to permit them to be released under one. Some of the 'new to version 3.7' codebase is already able to be released under both the old and newly-chosen license.

The current version 3.7 development codebase will be made publicly available at around the same time as the Moray codebase. This will allow the public to assist, if they wish, in completing version 3.7 of POV-Ray and will also assist in the transition to 4.0. POV hopes to be able to announce the final 4.0 license choice at this time.

There is no schedule for the release of 4.0. It will primarily depend on the amount of public assistance that is received in re-writing non-OSI-licensable code.

Here is a permanent link to this announcement on the POV-Ray site. Lutz and Markus have their own announcement available on their news page.

Bishop3D 1.0.1.2 beta

A new beta version of the Windows POV-Ray modeller Bishop3D is now available. Bishop3D supports animation key-framing, native SDL import and integration with POV-Ray 3.6, with this new version including bug fixes, new features and improvements.

PovClipse 0.6.2

PovClipse 0.6.2, an Eclipse editor plug-in for POV-Ray scene file editing, has been released. With a host of improvements and fixes this new version is better than ever! To install PovClipse, follow the instructions on the Installation page.

LionSnake 1.6.5

Surface subdivision modeller LionSnake 1.6.5 includes new bug fixes to improve the reliability of its undo feature. Download instructions and a detailed list of changes can be found on the LionSnake website.

Lorenz and modular flows: a visual introduction

From Etienne Ghys and Jos Leys comes "Lorenz and modular flows: a visual introduction". This detailed illustrated article is well worth a look, as are the authors' websites!

POV-Ray Short Code Contest - Round 4 - Closing soon!

Entries for Round 4 of the POV-Ray Short Code Contest (or SCC4, for short), close at midnight 30th November! If you haven't entered, why not check out the previous round results from 2004 and then get crunching!

LionSnake 1.6

LionSnake 1.6 is now available. A surface subdivision modeller, this new release includes additional editing functionality and bug fixes.

Rheingold3D 1.7

Rheingold3D 1.7, a standalone 3D polygon modeller, is now available and includes many bug fixes, changes and new features.

PovClipse 0.4.2

Version 0.4.2 of the Eclipse editor plug-in for POV-Ray scene file editing, PovClipse, has been released. The new version includes new rendering configuration settings, templates, improved file path handling and more.

The 5 Gigapixel Image - Rendered

Christoph Hormann has announced that, after five months of rendering, The 5 Gigapixel Image has been completed!

Bishop3D 1.0.1.0 beta

A new Windows modeller for POV-Ray, Bishop3D, has been released for public beta testing. It offers native keyframe animation support, POV-Ray SDL import, integration with POV-Ray 3.6 and many other features.

PoseRay 3.10.0

A new version of the object converter/renderer PoseRay has been released and now supports running under Linux using Wine 0.9.21. Additionally there have been several buxfixes and other changes.

PovClipse 0.4.1

An Eclipse editor plug-in for POV-Ray scene file editing, PovClipse features syntax highlighting and a host of other useful POV-Ray-centric functions. Auto-completion of quotes and brace matching using highlighting are just some of the features new to version 0.4.1.

Ani2Pov 0.38, now supports Anim8or 0.95

The Anim8or .an8 to POV-Ray file converter, Ani2Pov, has been updated with new features for both its Linux and Windows versions. It now supports Anim8or 0.95 files and includes the ability to automatically prefix object and texture names.

Y.A.P.R.M. 0.5 released

Featuring new objects, a completely new user interface with tabs, a tree layer view and flat shaded viewport rendering, Y.A.P.R.M. 0.5 has now been released.

MegaPOV XRS (Extreme Render System)

MegaPOV XRS has been released, adding distributed rendering to MegaPOV. Consisting of a modified MegaPOV server and multi-platform Python-based client, MegaPOV XRS allows distributed tile rendering of scenes on multiple local or remote CPUs. It features a live render preview and utilises HTTP for client-server communication. MegaPOV XRS also allows for rapid, repeated test renders.

SPEC 2006 CPU Benchmark Suite contains POV-Ray

POV-Ray 3.6 is part of the newly-released SPEC CPU 2006 benchmark suite. The SPEC CPU 2006 benchmark is the next generation of the widely used industry standard CPU benchmark suite, stressing a system's processor and memory subsystem as well as compiler development.

This is good news for POV-Ray users, since, over time, processor and system vendors tend to optimize their technology to perform well when running the problems in the SPEC benchmark. This can lead to better performance of POV-Ray on newly released processors. Additionally, compiler vendors frequently use SPEC to validate their compilers; thus users of POV-Ray on platforms not officially supported are, in the medium to long term, less likely to encounter problems, therefore extending overall portability of POV-Ray.

K3DSurf 0.5.5 for Linux now supports Isosurfaces

A new Linux version of the mathematical surface modeller K3DSurf has been released with Isosurface support and the ability to apply twisting and scaling transformations.

Links Collection Updated

The POV-Ray Links Collection, a wide-ranging directory of POV-Ray and graphics related websites and utilities, has recently been updated and restructured thanks Chris Bartlett, with the assistance of Michael Stapleton, Jim Charter and Jim Henderson. The extensive overhaul has resulted in an up to date and more logically organised listing.

If you're looking for a POV-Ray or graphics link, chances are good that you'll find it in the new collection!

A special Thank You to those involved for selflessly donating their time and effort to undertake this project!

POV-Ray image is today's 'Featured Picture' on Wikipedia
An image by renowned POV-Ray artist Gilles Tran is today's featured picture on Wikipedia. For those reading this news item after 2 August, the image can be found here.[August 02, 2006]

PoseRay 3.9.0

Object converter/renderer PoseRay version 3.9.0 has now been released with many bug fixes and new features.

Cloud in the Sky

Steve Klebs invites the POV-Ray community to Cloud in the Sky, a site featuring graphics created with POV-Ray. Steve plans to expand the site with a new area hosting tips, tricks and tools in the vein of the Stone Soup Group.

Cubemaps

Matteo Galiazzo (Eilart) has opened a new website presenting images and details from his Cubemaps work.

The 5 Gigapixel Image

Christoph Hormann, as part of his Views of the Earth rendering project, has started assembling a "giga image" - a 96000×54000 pixel view of the Earth - using POV-Ray. Check out the progress so far as well as some of the techniques being utilised!

Logitech DLL causing crash in POV-Ray 3.7 betas

Just a word of warning to users of our 3.7 beta series; if you find that when starting the beta it appears to do nothing (i.e. the program doesn't even start up), you might want to check this thread where the interaction between a particular Logitech DLL and the beta is discussed.

"Seven Animations" now available at Amazon.com

Dennis Miller's Seven Animations DVD, a collection of abstract animations (six of which were created with POV-Ray), is now available at Amazon (release date: April 25, 2006). Note that while Amazon lists this DVD as being Region 1, the DVD does not appear to be region coded. As previously mentioned, NetFlix members can rent this DVD.

Insert Menu Add-ons

Friedrich Lohmueller has updated his "Insert Menu Add-on" for the Windows version of POV-Ray, adding new shearing matrices, transformations and shapes to the existing collection of isosurfaces, loops, spline curves, basic animations, etc. Additionally a small objects collection is now available as an insert menu add-on.

IMPFarm client 0.65 released

A new version of the Internet Movie Project's IMPFarm POV-Ray rendering client has been released and is available for Windows and other platforms (with Perl).

To get started, join the forums to create your account username and password, then download the client to begin participating as a rendering client in IMP's distributed render farm.

Blend2Pov 0.06a

Blend2Pov 0.06a, an extension to Blender allowing Blender scenes to be exported and rendered in POV-Ray, has been released.

It is available for Windows (including source for all versions), Linux and Apple OS X.

Ani2Pov now available for Linux

Texel has released a Linux version of Ani2Pov, an Anim8or .an8 to POV-Ray convertor.

Render Farm Roundup

A host of new and updated render farm solutions for POV-Ray have recently been released, including:

• SMPOV 4.4, with a new installer and bug fixes.
• Instant-Grid, a Knoppix-based live Linux system for easily building computing grids includes POV-Ray with a web interface.
• Sun Grid Compute Utility, the $1/CPU-hour computing farm, hosts POV-Ray as a sample application.

Views of the Earth, AC3D and POV-Ray animation

• Christoph Hormann has announced a new site, Views of the Earth, showcasing realistic Earth surface renderings made using POV-Ray.
• Meanwhile, a step by step tutorial explaining the process of creating animations using AC3D and POV-Ray has been published by PerFnurt.

Dennis Miller's Seven Animations (1999-2005) DVD

POV-Ray user Dennis Miller has released a DVD of abstract animations, six of which are created in POV-Ray. The DVD is also available for rental through NetFlix in the USA.

Eagle3D PCB exporter for POV-Ray

Matthias Weißer has created Eagle3D, an application that creates POV-Ray models of circuits/PCBs from the PCB layout design program Eagle. This allows the 2D layouts of circuit boards from Eagle to be rendered as full 3D circuit board models in POV-Ray, complete with capacitors, connectors, ICs, resistors, etc.

Rheingold3D 1.5

Version 1.5 of the standalone 3D polygon modeler, Rheingold3D, is now available. Rheingold3D sports integration with POV-Ray for rendering and import, with this latest release including numerous new features.

SynthMaker

SynthMaker (beta), a "graphical programming environment" for VST instruments, can be used with POV-Ray to create animations.

New Y.A.P.R.M. and "cpt city"

Y.A.P.R.M. ("Yet Another POV-Ray Modeller") reaches version 0.4.5 with support for new polyline and plane objects and storing parts of scenes as reusable models.

cpt city, an archive of colour gradients for cartography, technical illustration and design, now includes gradients in POV-Ray color_map format.

K3DSurf 0.5.4

The mathematical surface modeller K3DSurf 0.5.4 is now available, adding new Deformer/Builder tools.

POV-Ray contributors assignments

There is now a source code history page available which sets out some information regarding the evolution of the POV-Ray codebase into what it is today. It particularly pays attention to the issue of formal assignment of usage rights by developers (past and present) to the POV-Ray project. The generation of this information is the result of a long-term effort and the co-operation of a considerable number of contributors to the codebase. The team sincerely thanks all concerned!

Geomorph 0.31 released

Geomorph (for Linux), an advanced terrain heightfield editor for POV-Ray, has been updated to fix an options file issue.

Utilities and tools updates

• JPatch 0.5.1 (development version) has been released and now includes OpenGL support
• PoseRay has undergone a number of changes, bringing it to version 3.8.18
• Ani2Pov v0.36, an Anim8or to POV-Ray converter, is now available with several bugs fixed.

Truevision 0.5.5 released

A new release of the GNOME modeler for POV-Ray, Truevision, is available, featuring a new Python plugin interface, improved GUI and many bug fixes.

LionSnake 1.5a released

Version 1.5a of the LionSnake Modeler is now available with new functions and fixes.

POV-Ray v3.7.beta.9 available.

POV-Ray v3.7.beta.9 (windows platforms only, includes AMD64) is available from our beta page. New in this revision is restored support for mosaic preview, dispersion and radiosity, the ability to specify render block size, and improved handling of large renders, plus numerous other bugfixes and improvements.

POV-Ray 3.7 is a significant update to the 3.x series as it supports SMP (including dual-core processors such as those from AMD and Intel).

Recent apps and macro releases

• MegaPOV 1.2.1 has been released, fixing several issues
• PoseRay 3.8.14 is now available with bug fixes and improved performance and memory management
• Tim Nikias releases new Rolling Macros (example available here)
• Y.A.P.R.M. (Yet Another POV-Ray Modeller) version 0.4, a modeller for the X Windowing System, has been released, introducing support for spline objects and fixing several small bugs

POV-Ray v3.7.beta.8 available.

POV-Ray v3.7.beta.8 (windows platforms only, includes AMD64) is available from our beta page. New in this revision is support for the HDR and EXR file formats, faster AA method 2, fixed crackle, and numerous other minor changes.

POV-Ray 3.7 is a significant update to the 3.x series as it supports SMP (including dual-core processors such as those from AMD and Intel).

Recent news rollup

• MegaPOV 1.2 has been released and includes several bug fixes, improvements and new features
• PoseRay 3.8.11 object converter (and renderer) is now available, fixing two critical bugs
• K3DSurf, a new modeler for POV-Ray in the area of parametric surfaces (among other things) has been released
• Truevision modeler 0.5.4 is now available with a host of new functions
• JPatch, the Java-based modeler and animation tool for POV-Ray, has received another update bringing it to version 0.4
• Mesh-Modifying-Macros by Tim Nikias have also undergone another update

French POV-Ray magazine issued

Diamond Editions, a French publisher of several computer magazines (e.g. Linux Magazine, Linux Pratique) has published the February/March issue of "Presqu'Offert" (n° 39), 100% dedicated to POV-Ray: “Starting 3D with POV-Ray”. http://www.linuxmag-france.org/produit.php?produit=380 The 66 page magazine contains an introduction to ray tracing basics, POV-ray installation, 12 workshops that explains step by step how to create a first scene, from the camera, to the lights, the primitives, textures, transformations, radiosity, photons. On the CD there is POV-Ray 3.6.1, and the binaries for the exercises.

[March 21, 2005]

Tools and Announcements

• Y.A.P.R.M. 0.3.9 released
• Ani2Pov v0.33 available
• Surcoat2Hair Macros released
• Patchy stuff
• QTPov Editor v0.4.2 & QTPE Scene Packager v0.1.2 for Windows
• Upcoming Render Competition at Terra Romana
• PoseRay 3.8.7 - faster subdivision and POV-Ray mesh object import.
• Truevision version 0.5.2
• SMPOV 4.3/Distri27: Preview for single Pictures

Recent news rollup

• Release 1.9.3 of the tree generating program Arbaro is now available. Amongst other changes it now supports UV mapping.
• QTPov Editor v0.4.0 and QTPE Scene Packager v0.1.0 have been released.
• There is a new version of POVANIM available.
• Version 1.4 of the java based terrain generator planetGenesis has been released.
• A preview of version 3.0 of Hamapatch is available.
• Alpha 0.5.0 of the Gnome 3d modeller Truevision has been released.
• There is an unofficial POV Wiki now operating at http://www.wikipov.org/.
• The newly-released Surcoat-Macros are a set of macros designed to efficiently shoot samples onto the surface of an object for various coating effects like snow, dust, mist, hair, etc.
• The publisher Carl Hanser in Munich has published a new POV-Ray-Book written in German. It is targeted at beginners and can be ordered via amazon.de.

Tools and Includes - New Releases and Updates

Here are the latest tools and includes updates:

• Mesh-Modifying-Macros updated
• POV-Ray with Subdivision v0.03 available
• Arbaro tree-generator 1.9.1 released
• JPatch 0.3 released
• PoseRay 3.8.2 released
• SMPOV 4.20 available with support for MegaPOV 1.1
• QTPov Editor v0.3.6 released
• MegaPOV 1.1 released
• Hamapatch updated
• Update of POVWIN Insert Menu add-on
• planetGenesis 1.3 released

POVRAY.ORG's 10th anniversary

It was ten years ago today - on 18 August 1994 - that the POVRAY.ORG domain was registered. We've been on the internet continuously since then. Back in those days it was fairly unusual for a free software project to have its own domain and/or server and the logistics of setting one up were entirely different than they are now.

The POV-Team would like to extend its thanks to all those who have helped to make this happen, including Walnut Creek CDROM for providing our original hosting, the FreeBSD folks for early support and the immensely stable OS we run on, Digimark for providing DNS for all this time, and Netplex Internet for providing fast and reliable hosting for many years and generally being darn cool folks.

POV-Ray v3.6.0 source code released

The source code for POV-Ray v3.6.0 for Win32, Mac/PPC, and Unix/Linux has been released. It is available from our download page.

POVWIN v3.6 RC2 (64-bit edition) available

POV-Ray for Windows/64 version 3.6.0 RC2 is now available from our beta page. This fully native 64-bit edition of POVWIN requires an AMD64 (or compatible) processor running Windows XP/64 (or any other 64-bit Microsoft operating system targeted at the AMD64). It will not install or function on any 32-bit operating system, even if it is hosted on a 64-bit processor.

POV-Ray With Subdivision available

Xiaobin Wu writes: "During one of my research projects, I needed to quickly create the ray-tracing images of subdivision surfaces. What I did is to subdivide the object offline and import the subdivided surface into Pov-Ray, which of course led to huge pov-ray files.

I found it extremely convenient to have the mesh2 object directly support the subdivision algorithms. So I and another student (Jianhua Fan) spent some time to expand the mesh2 object so that it can be directly used to generate smooth subdivision surfaces."

His full submissions can be found here and here.

Discontinuity Animation System Ready for Development

Discontinuity is a tool written in Java to help make non-linear animations using the POV-Ray raytracer. The project is now looking for developers and other team members to help transform it from its current half-formed state into a user-friendly, powerful program.

The full details can be found here.

povanim : a tool to export from Blender to POV-Ray

Jean-Michel Soler wrote to tell us that he has released povanim, an avanced script to export from blender to POV-Ray, as well as some of the more popular patched versions of POV such as megapov and mlpov. Some examples can be found here.

Tools and Includes - New Releases and Updates

Here are the latest tools and includes updates:

• JPatch 0.3 beta 1
• planetGenesis 1.3
• Arbaro 0.9
• SMPOV 4.1
• QTPov Editor v0.3.5
• LionSnake v1.2

POV-Ray 3.6.0 released

The POV-Team is pleased to announce that POV-Ray version 3.6.0 has been released. A big "thank you!" to all those who helped develop and test this release, which was almost two years in the making.

Tools and Includes - New Releases and Updates

Here are the latest tools and includes updates:

• QTPov Editor version 0.3.2 is available
• Princeton university has a search engine for 36000 3d models
• planetGenesis version 1.1 is available
• John VanSickle's Surface Subdivision Suite has been updated
• Tim Nikias has released Parsys, an I/O-based Particle System and examples
• John VanSickle released LionSnake Modeler to be used with his surface subdivision macros
• POV-Anywhere version 0.2 is available
• POV-Tree version 1.5 is available

Results of Fractal Raytracing Contest

Paul Bourke wrote to let us know that the results for the Fractal Raytracing Contest are now available on his website.

New Planet and Terrain generator written in Java

David Burnett writes: "PlanetGenesis is a Planet and Terrain generator written in 100% Java.

It generates 16 bit greyscale PNG bitmap textures as a basis for height fields or displacement for planetary bodies and terrain. It also generates POV or Wavefront meshes.

PlanetGenesis can be downloaded from here and instructions can be found on its website. A short demonstration video can be downloaded from http://planetgenesis.sf.net/pg2.mp4."

POV-Ray v3.6 beta 2 available

POV-Ray version 3.6 beta 2 has been released and is available on our beta page.

POV-Ray Short Code Contest 3 winners

Voting has finished and the winners of the SCC3 are Tekno Frannansa and Christoph Hormann. The entries can be viewed (and source code downloaded) from here.

'Discontinuity' animation tool released.

Shalom Naumann has send us this announcement: "Discontinuity, a tool to help make animations with POV-Ray, has finally had its first release. The first release is meant to give a taste of what Discontinuity will eventually do.

POV-Ray has always had the capability of creating animations. However, the process was always cumbersome and difficult. In an effort to make it easier, I started writing a keyframe-based program to ease the process.

However, I never got around to finishing the program. In an effort to allow the project to continue, I decided to put it up on SourceForge (an open-source community) and hope that other people will finish it off.

I am still in the process of cleaning up and commenting the code, but it's not too bad and I would like to hear some initial reactions to the program. Do people think its a worthwhile project? Would anyone be willing to work on it? I don't have much time these days, and though I am willing to adminstrate the project for the next few months, I will have to stop in the near future.

Take a look at http://discontinuity.sourceforge.net/. Feel free to contact me for more information."

Rune's "story of the POV-Ray logo"

Rune writes "POV-Ray's logo is widely known in the POV-Ray community. It's used in the splash image of the program, in its icon and in its documentation, and it's used on the POV-Ray website. Furthermore many people in the community use it on their own websites as symbols immediately identifiable with POV-Ray, and to promote POV-Ray.

However, POV-Ray have not always had this logo. In fact, even though the first public release of what we now know as POV-Ray was released in July 1991, POV-Ray didn't have a logo until December 2000.

The story of how POV-Ray got its logo is an interesting one involving lots of people, lots of discussions and lots of creativity. On these pages I have told this story from my point of view.

QT-based POV editor for X-Windows

Thierry has announced QTPov Editor. QTPov Editor is a Povray SDL editor for X-Windows.

Major features:

• Syntax coloration
• Brackets highlight (including <,>)
• automatic / manual tabulation system
• completion system (with both keywords and declarations/macros)
• declarations / macros listing
• included files parsing ( to get declarations and macros )
• ini editor
• ini profile assistant
• scene rendering via .ini files

Unattended POV install/de-install utility

Theo Gottwald has announced that he has updated his unattended POV install/de-install script. You can grab it from here.

POV-Tree 1.4 available

Gena Obhukov advises that POV-Tree 1.4 is now available. New features include re-designed GUI, progress bar, multi-threading, internationalization, UV mapped leaves, and quick image preview.

POV-Ray v3.6 beta 1 available

POV-Ray version 3.6 beta 1 is now available for download from the beta section of our website. While we feel it is fairly stable it nevertheless does have bugs and we do not recommend its use by those who are not familiar with the ins and outs of using beta software.

As this stage we do not have a web-site-friendly list of changes to the renderer, however we can say that there are no major new features that would be evident to the end-user. Mostly the changes have been internal.

SMPOV 4.00 released with scripting interface

Theo Gottwald writes to say that version 4.00 of SMPOV has been released with scripting interface and support for wan rendering via foldershare.

It includes a new communication engine in both RenderAgent and SMPOV-Main and supports WAN Rendering via Foldershare or other "Sync based networks". The new engine has a central Job-Control ; each renderAgent has to ask for a job first. The Scripting Interface enables you to make SMPOV automatically render (Script-Job) files that appear in the new COMAUT-Folder OR that are given as a commandline-Parameter.

TesselSphere-1.1.0-rc9 released

Nicholas Shea writes "TesselSphere is an OpenGL spherical subdivision utility I wrote to generate vertexia for pollen, radiolaria and virus forms.

It outputs POV-Ray and VRML. It has both particle and geodesic subdivsion modules and uses live 'morphers' to split the vertexia of Delaunay and Voronoi hulls into 'cells'. These cells can also be stellated.

TesselSphere has been successfully compiled on Win-98 and Linux Mandrake-9.1

I hope the POV community finds it of use and I would like to thank all the programmers who have shared their code with me over the past years. This is my offering in return."

'Lawnmaker' tool

We've been told about a tool called lawnmaker which the author says allows you to 'plant' a large number of objects on a given surface (e.g. a height field). Placement, size and orientation of grassblades (and any other type of objects) is mostly controlled by patterns. By using images it is possible to 'paint' the plants on the landscape.

Friedrich Lohmueller's Insert Menu add-on updated

Friedrich Lohmueller writes "An update of my “Insert Menu Add-on” to POV-Ray for Windows is available now (English + German).

My Insert Menu Add-on to POV-Ray for Windows consists of a bundle of Insert Menu items like basic scenes, basic and advanced shapes, sample isosurface shapes, sample loops, sample spline curves, backgrounds and sample files for the visualisation of math functions as well as basic animation samples.

All items are fully functional code segments, all shapes are textured and have vanila basic transformations to make it easier to use the correct syntax for newbies and also for advanced users.

This version is now extended by Insert Menu items from "shapes_q.inc" and a large collection of code samples for nearly all kind of textures and materials."

Arbaro 0.8 released

Wolfram has advised that version 0.8 of Arbaro is released.

Comparing with version 0.7 there are the following major changes:

• pictures explaining the parameters
• direct POVRay invoking option
• using mesh output the tree consists only
of two meshes: one with all the stems and another with all the leaves. (You can give the triangle number of a leaf using disc1 ... discN for the Leaf parameter, for special purposes you can use Leaf=shpere (spherical leaf), it's aproximated by an ikosaeder, see desert_bush.xml as an example)

New beta of ppModeler for Windows

Pierre Saunier wrote to let us know that a new beta of his 3d modeller is available at www.ppmodeler.com.

Silo modeller now exports to POV-Ray

The folks from Nevercenter tell us that a new version of their modeller, 'Silo', has been released that features export to POV-Ray scene files.

"Nevercenter Ltd. Co. is proud to announce the release of Silo 1.16, which now includes support for linking to Renderman-compliant renderers and POV-ray for direct rendering from Silo. Options include the ability to add header and footer files to the render file, and the ability to optionally include or exclude light, camera, and material information.

Also new to 1.16 are such improvements as a more advanced universal manipulator and manipulator options, as well as some tool enhancements and workflow improvements. Silo continues to be updated and improved at a breakneck pace.

Visit our site now to download the latest version of Silo. Users who have purchased Silo get the upgrade for free, and will continue to get all version 1.x upgrades for free. Those who have not yet purchased the software can try the free 40-use demo included with the full version, and buy the full version at our online store for just $109."

Moray v3.5 available

The long awaited Moray 3.5 has been released. It has a number of new features including a low polygon mesh editor with surface subdivision and UV mapping support, new viewport layouts, material manager, various rendering modes and a whole stack of smaller changes.

"Arbaro" tree-building tool released

Wolfram Diestel writes "A new version (0.7) of Arbaro is released.

Now there is a simple GUI for the software, where you can open tree definition files, edit parameters, save it and create the POVRay file with the tree objects.

Hope this will help, if you aren't familiar with the command line. The GUI also has a help function to get information about the parameters. But reading the Weber/Penn paper is better to get a deep understanding about the various parameters.

I would be very glad if someone with better english knowledge could help me somewhat with the parameter descriptions."

"MayaFur" macros available

Doug Eichenberg has announced version 1.5 of MayaFur is available.

MayaFur are basically a set of macros that mimic the way fur and hair are done in Alias|Wavefront's Maya package, and they are capable of producing a wide range of very nice looking fur styles. Parameters include length, base_width, tip_width, segments, base_curl, tip_curl, scraggle, scraggle_frequency, inclination, roll, polar, and offset. You can also generate textures via triangle texture interpolation, with control over the number of interpolated segments, the base color, tip color, base ambient value, and tip ambient value. Alternatively, triangle texture interpolation can be turned off, and standard POV textures can be used. A fur placement macro is included that makes use of Chris Colefaxes PCM.MCR files, which are bundled along with Warp's mesh compressor by permission of the authors. Full HTML documentation and sample code is included as well.

POV-Tree version 1.3

Gena Obukhov writes "POV-Tree version 1.3 is now available. New features in POV-Tree 1.3:

• Added 'Randomize Roots', 'Randomize Branches' and 'Randomize Twigs' buttons to 'Preview' tab. They have the same meaning as 'Randomness' buttons on corresponding tabs. So, there is no need to jump from tab to tab if you need different distribution of roots, branches and twigs.
• Added to foliage such color parameters as 'Filter' and 'Transparency'.
• Added 'Deselect' button to 'Foliage Type' and 'Blossom Type' panels.
• Bug fixes.

Hopefully I have not introduced new bugs :). If you will face any problem please let me know.

New version of anim8or

Txemi Jendrix has advised that there is a new versión (0.85) of the free modeller and animation program Anim8or at its web site www.anim8or.com. For the linux users it's stated that you can run Anim8or too. It reportedly works quite well on Redhat 7.1 using WINE.

IsoWood include file for POV-Ray 3.5

Christoph Hormann writes "Took a long time but here it finally is - the first version of the IsoWood include file for POV-Ray 3.5.

It does not yet include the stump stuff i have recently shown in p.b.i. but there are various other new features available:

• double rounded plank
• custom shape macros
• weathered wood examples
• wooden post macros (rounded and broken)
• possibility to apply color correction to the color maps"

Genetic programming system

Jefu writes "I've just put a grammar based evolutionary programming thing that produces POV as a 3d scene representation on sourceforge.net - its called "grammidity" and may be of some interest.

POV-Tree 1.2.1 released

Gena Obukhov has announced that POV-Tree v1.2.1 is now available. New in this version:

• Added blossom generator. It supports original heightfield blossoms from TOMTREE and new mesh blossom as well. Created 6 examples of mesh blossom. Custom mesh blossom can be created the same way as custom mesh leaf.
• 'Tree' tab split into two new tabs - 'General' and 'Examples'. 'General' tab has interactive tree image and text fields for displaying the number of triangles in mesh tree and required disc space for that tree. 'Examples' tab has all previous example trees including three new examples:
  'Default' tree. POV-Tree starts with this tree.
  'Cherry' - example of using blossom.
  'Pine'.
• Added 'Tabs' menu for changing orientation of tabs. There are two possible variants: top and bottom. The main purpose of 'Bottom' orientation was to shorten distance between tabs' headers and 'Preview' button.
• Created 'Randomness' buttons for Roots, Branches and Twigs. Now clicking that button you can get next random number. There is no need to type it manually anymore.
• Added Up, Down, Left and Right buttons to foliage / Size & Color tab. So, if you need just one color there is no need to type RGB values four times. It can be defined just once and than copied to another fields using those buttons.

SMPOV 3.10 available

Theo Gottwald has announced that SPMPOV 3.10 is available. SMPOV is a utility that allows POV 3.5/MegaPOV 1.0 render jobs to be split amongst multiple CPU's - network or local (seems to work even with P-IV Hyperthreading).

The last SMPOV 3.10 release which is available for download NOW fixes some topics ("Doer error") which appeared when there were mistakes in the ".pov"-file. It could be annoying especially when rendering animations with hundreds of pictures. Secondly the ability of RenderAgent (the part of SMPOV which controls POV-Ray) to hide/minimize multiple instances of POV-Ray/MegaPOV is actually increased to unlimited.

PartixGen released

Tim Nikias writes: PartixGen is a complete non I/O Particle System written by Tim Nikias v2.0 for POV-Ray. It provides several in-built features for easy integration into POV-Scenes, as well as several User-Definable Macros to achieve effects not already scripted into the Include-File. The main issue about non I/O is that it may render the frames independantly of order, so distributed rendering is possible.

You may download the source here and view some example animations here

Source code to blob2 patch released

Chris Huff writes "I have released the source code to the blob2 patch as part of my revived MegaPOVPlus collection (based on MegaPOV 1.0).

Still some optimizations to do and problems to fix, but it is comparable to blob in speed. It doesn't support per-component textures yet, but that is something I do plan to implement. Supported components are sphere, sphere-capped cylinder, hard-edged cylinder, sphere-capped cone (buggy), hard-edged cone, torus, and box (not heavily tested).

Not much documentation, but it is quite similar to the blob and isosurface primitives, and there is a test scene available. There is little other than the blob2 patch here, I do have more, but not ready for release."

Step-by-step tutorial to SMPOV available

Theo Gottwald has released a step-by-step guide on how to use SMPOV (a utility that allows render jobs to be split amongst multiple CPU's).

POV-Tree v1.1 now available

Gena Obukhov writes "I've finished a new version of POV-Tree. New features:

• icons for leaf type
• more predefined mesh leaves. Now you have leaves from one triangle up to 24 triangles.
• custom mesh leaf. You can develop your own mesh leaf in POV-Ray and then just cut and paste all triangles into POV-Tree, and it will be used by mesh tree generator.
• added three new examples - maple, willow, linden.
• bug fixes

I also included TOMTREEm.inc into distribution. This is modified TOMTREE macro which works about 6-7 times faster. See example trees and screenshots in p.b.images.

Right now you can get POV-Tree here ; later on I'll update all my homepages and you'll find it in usual locations."

New Moray plugins

Luis writes "There is a new plugin for Moray 3.3 and newer available on my site. This plugin allows you to insert Povray Code directly in Moray Scenes. This a new way to insert things like macros in Moray."

Luis has also made available Diamond v 1.002 to make diamonds in Moray ; see the above URL for the file ; a sample image can be seen here.

'Reach for the Stars" poster now a Zazzle special collection

The POV-Team is pleased to announce that the Reach for the Stars poster is now available on Zazzle as a special collection, featured alongside prestigious institutions such as the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Boston Public Library, and the Bancroft Library.

New version of IsoCSG library

Christoph Hormann has made available a new version of his IsoCG library. New features are exponential blob macros, blob linearizing macros, various torus macros, plus IC_Heightfield(), IC_HF_Sphere() and IC_HF_Cylinder() macros.

New version of “Insert Menu Add-on” for POVWIN

Friedrich writes "I have made this 'Insert Menu Add-on' to Windows version of POV-Ray to make creating scenes easier for beginners and also more comfortable for advanced users.

It consists of a bundle of Insert Menu items like basic scenes, basic and advanced shapes, sample isosurface shapes, sample loops, sample spline curves, backgrounds and sample files for the visualisation of math functions as well as basic animation samples. All items are fully functional code segments, all shapes are textured and have vanilla basic transformations to make it easier to use the correct syntax.

Now a new extended version is available (in English and German). For details and download see here."

Liquid Surface Simulation Macros released

Tim Nikias has released the LSSM (Liquid Surface Simulation Macros), which are a set of macros designed to simulate waves which reflect off of static objects, and may be generated by moving ones.

LSSM may be downloaded from here.

POV-Ray at the International Space Station

We are pleased to announce the pending availability of our new poster, entitled 'Reach for the Stars'. This poster was rendered using POV-Ray by astronaut Mark Shuttleworth during his visit to the International Space Station last year.

More details can be found on our poster page, which includes a link to a detailed 'making of', explaining how this all came to happen.

JPatch 0.2 pre-alpha released

The JPatch team have released version 0.2 of JPatch, an sPatch like modeler which can export to RIB (RenderMan) and POV-Ray.

New features include Java3D Preview, Javascript, Background Images (Rotoscope), and javax.vecmath Package, as well as numerous bugfixes.

POV-Tree 1.0 released

Gena Obukhov writes "The final version of POV-Tree (a Java-based tree generator) is available here. The source files are available as well.

The final version has an interactive tree editor and supports UV-mapping. See README.txt for details."

Zazzle officially opens

zazzle has officially opened, sporting a brand-new website, after more than 18 months of extensive beta testing. They sport numerous new products (e.g. greeting cards and note cards), plus a new 'Colossal' size print.

CinePaint (a.k.a. Film Gimp) for Windows

A beta version of cinepaint (film gimp) for windows has been released. It can be used to postprocess pov 16 bits png (created with +FN16).

CinePaint is a free open source painting and image retouching program designed to work best with 35mm film and other high resolution high dynamic range images. It is the most popular open source tool in the motion picture industry -- used in Scooby-Doo, Harry Potter, Stuart Little and other feature films. CinePaint is used for painting of background mattes and for frame-by-frame retouching of movies. CinePaint is available for Linux, Macintosh OS X, Windows, and other popular operating systems.

New version of HCR-Edit

Christoph Hormann has made available a new version of his HCR-Edit image manipulation program.

HCR-Edit is a windows program for post processing images and has the capability to deal with images of more than 8 bit color depth per channel. New features in this version are:

• support for reading and writing HDR high dynamic range images.
• support for reading raw float data.
• support for writing binary and ASCII float data.
• exposure adjustments.
• normalizing function.
• various other improvements and fixes.

Morphing sPatch

Txemi Jendrix writes "There is an utility called Morphing sPatch that takes two spatch format files models and creates the inbetween models (in spt format) for movement in animation purposes.

This utility has been made by Brian Black, also the author of Tweener; an external program that takes the first and last key frames of an animation sequence (in exported POV-Ray format from hamaPatch) and creates the specified number of inbetween POV-Ray frames by manipulating the bicubic patches of the exported hamaPatch model. It can be downloaded from here."

Digital Plant Modelling

Gilles Tran writes "For the German-speaking people, Oliver Deussen's book about digital plant modelling is now available.

This book contains several full-page colour plates of some of the images I did with Xfrog and POV-Ray in 2002-2003. They're not on my website yet, but they can be seen in the xfrog and zazzle websites (do a search with "xfrog" on the zazzle site)."

Computergenerierte Pflanzen - Technik und Design digitaler Pflanzenwelten
Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, January 2003
http://www.computerpflanzen.de/

JPatch 0.1 - patch modeller for POV-Ray

Sascha Ledinsky has released the first version of JPatch, a GPL-licensed bicubic patch modeller similar to sPatch. JPatch is written in Java and has been tested on Win2k and RedHat Linux 7.3. This version supports sPatch input/output and export to POV and renderman formats.

Anim8or v0.81 now available

v0.81 of Anim8or is now available for download. Anim8or is a free 3D modeling and character animation tool for the Windows platform. It supports OpenGL preview and import of .3ds, .lwo and .obj file formats.

PoseRay 2.6.6 available

FlyerX has released version 2.6.6 of PoseRay. It can now save the camera and lights information in the comment block of the OBJ file. This information can be read back by PoseRay when the OBJ file is loaded.

Link Buttons

Below are some buttons contributed by Rune for users who want to link to our site, or to otherwise indicate that their site uses POV-Ray generated renderings.

These buttons are also available on our Community page, so if you want to point folks at them, please use that URL rather than this news item.

Version 2.6.3 of PoseRay released
FlyerX writes -

I released version 2.6.3 of PoseRay. The main improvements are in texture management and memory handling. PoseRay can be configured to use about 40% of the memory that was needed in 2.6.0 for the same geometry. This may be useful for those huge meshes. For those of you with Poser 4 PoseRay now can read Poser pzz or pz3 files to extract the materials automatically. I also added a global map search to find those misplaced textures and link them to their proper path. Some turorials were added to the help file.

PoseRay and a sample gallery can be found here

Ray Tracing News, Volume 15, Number 1

RTN v15n1 is out. This edition contains (amongst other things) articles on 'RealStorm' (a realtime raytracing engine), efficient bounding box intersection, scanline vs raytracing, a simple ray-triangle Plücker optimization, and objects per grid cell.

4th annual Fantasy Graphics League

The 4th annual Fantasy Graphics League season has begun. With a limited budget and limited space, you attempt to hire the best graphics researchers in the world for your lab. Labs are then judged by which authors have publications accepted for next year's SIGGRAPH conference. It's free, spam-free, and non-fattening: http://www.realtimerendering.com/fgl.

New particle system released

Rune writes -

"My particle system is finally released! You can use it in POV-Ray 3.5 to create all sorts of effects, like water, smoke, fire and sparks. With a generic and non-specialized engine, the system makes it easy to customize the simulation to a wide range of uses. The package comes complete with include files, documentation, and several sample scene files that makes it easy to get started. You can download the system and also see animations of all the sample scene files here:"

http://runevision.com/3d/include/particles/

Moray v3.5 in beta testing.

Moray V3.5 For Windows has gone into beta testing. The new version features a mesh editor that supports subdivision surfaces and UV mapping. New features include textured, solid views, better viewport and object manipulation and improved support for POV-Ray v3.5. Moray requires Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP and a mouse. Hardware-assisted OpenGL is strongly recommended.

See http://www.stmuc.com/moray/menews.html.

Year Five IRTC CDROM

We are now taking orders for the Year Five IRTC CDROM. This year it's a two disc set, one for stills and one for anims.

Just a reminder that the sales of these CD's are the primary (and almost the only) means we have of supporting the running costs of this server.

Insert menu bonus pack

ABX has made available additional entries for the POV-Ray for Windows Insert Menu on his Insert Menu Bonus Pack page.

New version of IsoCSG library

Christoph Hormann has updated his IsoCSG library. It is compatible with the final POV-Ray 3.5 and contains two new macros, IC_Round_Box() and IC_Triangle().

It may be downloaded from his website.

Pyvon project

Pyvon is a python-based editor for POV-Ray that works under Linux. The GUI also works with Windows and Mac but not the raytraces. It is mostly a GUI that enables to edit, debug, fire up POV scene raytraces straight from the interface. Check it out on its sourceforge project page.

PoseRay 2.6.0 now available

FlyerX has announced that PoseRay v2.6 is now available from his website.

PoseRay is a utility to transform Wavefront OBJ files, edit their materials, act as a displacement tool and convert them into OBJ, POV-Ray, MegaPOV or Moray files. It can be used to convert Poser models into POV-Ray format.

This is a major release with many bug fixes and new features such as a full 3D preview using OpenGL and built-in texture handling. See his gallery for screenshots.

POV-Ray v3.5 availability

POV-Ray version 3.5 is available for the Windows, Macintosh and Linux platforms. As promised, as of today, source code is also now available.

In development for well over two years, v3.5 is a major improvement over all previous versions, not only in features, but in stability and the quality of the documentation and included example files. Of course, we don't claim it to be bug free (in fact, here's our known bugs list), but given our extensive alpha, pre-beta and beta program we feel that what we have released is a stable, well-tested piece of software that can be used with confidence.

Zazzle product addition now available

Registered users who have posters or T-Shirts available for sale via zazzle may now add them to their povray.org user account. This will make them available for display on this site and in our forthcoming user image gallery. Just log in and follow the link on the account editing page.