Welcome  

The Persistence of Vision Raytracer is a high-quality, Free Software tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. The source code is available for those wanting to do their own ports.

Christmas Baubles


  Download and Navigation  

To navigate about this site please use the navigation links at the top of this page. If you want to download POV-Ray, please visit our download page.


  Contacting Us  

For general resources and support information, please visit our resource and support page. For website-related issues only, please contact our webmaster. To contact us regarding licensing matters, please use the address given at the bottom of our license page.


  POV-Ray-related News  
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.

[November 06, 2024] [Permalink]
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.

[February 04, 2022] [Permalink]
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.

[August 31, 2021] [Permalink]
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.

[July 29, 2021] [Permalink]
Wiki back online

The POV-Wiki is now back online ... ... [read more]

[April 12, 2021] [Permalink]
Forums back online

Following more recovery work since the server crash we're happy to say our ... ... [read more]

[March 28, 2021] [Permalink]
Server Recovery

The www.povray.org site is now back in read-write mode ... ... [read more]

[March 21, 2021] [Permalink]
POV-Ray Server Downtime

Our server recently experienced a catastrophic hardware failure ... ... [read more]

[March 15, 2021] [Permalink]
Blender to Persistence of Vision

New Release: Blender to Persistence of Vision ... [read more]

[August 01, 2020] [Permalink]
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.

[July 23, 2020] [Permalink]
Older News

  Other items of possible interest  
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] [Permalink]
Jupiter Loses a Stripe
Lost: A giant belt of brown clouds big enough to swallow Earth twenty times over.

[June 03, 2010] [Permalink]
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] [Permalink]
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] [Permalink]
Solar Dynamics Observatory

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory ... [read more]

[June 03, 2010] [Permalink]
DAZ 3D-Gizmoz Introduces Digimi

Digimi the ultimate platform for generating personalized avatars. ... [read more]

[June 03, 2010] [Permalink]
OpenTK Library 1.0 RC1

The OpenTK is an advanced, low-level C# library ... [read more]

[June 03, 2010] [Permalink]
Rhino for OS X is in development

During development, pre-release Rhino OS X is free ... [read more]

[June 03, 2010] [Permalink]
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) ... [read more]

[June 03, 2010] [Permalink]
 
  Hall of Fame  
Hall of Fame Image
"Fall's Fury"

Hall of Fame Image
"My First CGSphere"

Hall of Fame Image
"Thanks for all the fish"

Hall of Fame Image
"Scherk-Collins sculpture"

Hall of Fame Image
"Bonsai Life"

See more images... [dialup version]


  Privacy Policy  
You may view our Privacy Policy here.



Copyright 2003-2021 Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.