2.1 Introduction

This book provides a reference for the Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer (POV-Ray). The documentation applies to all platforms to which this version of POV-Ray is ported. The platform-specific documentation is available for each platform separately.

This book is divided into these main parts:

1. This introduction together with a complete reference on "POV-Ray Options" which explains options (set either by command line switches or by INI file keywords) that tell POV-Ray how to render the scenes.
2. A complete reference on "Scene Description Language" in which you describe the scene.
3. A complete reference on the "Standard Include Files" that come with the POV-Ray package, to be used in your scenes.
4. Finally, a consolidation of the POV-Ray Scene Description Language in the "Quick Reference".

This book covers only the generic parts of the program which are common to each version. Each version has platform-specific documentation not included here. We recommend you finish reading the tuorial book then read the platform-specific information before using this reference.

The platform-specific docs will show you how to render a sample scene and will give you detailed description of the platform-specific features.

The Windows version documentation is available on the POV-Ray program's Help menu or by pressing the F1 key while in the program.

The Mac platform documentation is available via the "Help" menu as well as for viewing using a regular web browser. Details may be found in the "POV-Ray MacOS Read Me" which contains information specific to the Mac version of POV-Ray. It is best to read this document first.

The Unix / Linux version documentation can be found at the same place as the platform independent part. Usually that is /usr/local/share/povray-3.?/html

Section Contents

• 2.1.1 Notation and Basic Assumptions
• 2.1.2 Command-line Options
  • 2.1.2.1 Animation Options
    • 2.1.2.1.1 External Animation Loop
    • 2.1.2.1.2 Internal Animation Loop
    • 2.1.2.1.3 Subsets of Animation Frames
    • 2.1.2.1.4 Cyclic Animation
    • 2.1.2.1.5 Field Rendering
  • 2.1.2.2 General Output Options
    • 2.1.2.2.1 Height and Width of Output
    • 2.1.2.2.2 Partial Output Options
    • 2.1.2.2.3 Interrupting Options
    • 2.1.2.2.4 Resuming Options
  • 2.1.2.3 Display Output Options
    • 2.1.2.3.1 Display Hardware Settings
    • 2.1.2.3.2 Setting your Display Gamma
    • 2.1.2.3.3 Display Related Settings
    • 2.1.2.3.4 Mosaic Preview
  • 2.1.2.4 File Output Options
    • 2.1.2.4.1 Output File Type
    • 2.1.2.4.2 Output File Name
    • 2.1.2.4.3 Output File Buffer
    • 2.1.2.4.4 CPU Utilization Histogram
    • 2.1.2.4.5 File Type
    • 2.1.2.4.6 File Name
    • 2.1.2.4.7 Grid Size
  • 2.1.2.5 Scene Parsing Options
    • 2.1.2.5.1 Constant
    • 2.1.2.5.2 Input File Name
    • 2.1.2.5.3 Include File Name
    • 2.1.2.5.4 Library Paths
    • 2.1.2.5.5 Language Version
  • 2.1.2.6 Shell-out to Operating System
    • 2.1.2.6.1 String Substitution in Shell Commands
    • 2.1.2.6.2 Shell Command Sequencing
    • 2.1.2.6.3 Shell Command Return Actions
  • 2.1.2.7 Text Output
    • 2.1.2.7.1 Text Streams
    • 2.1.2.7.2 Console Text Output
    • 2.1.2.7.3 Directing Text Streams to Files
    • 2.1.2.7.4 Warning Level
    • 2.1.2.7.5 Help Screen Switches
  • 2.1.2.8 Tracing Options
    • 2.1.2.8.1 Quality Settings
    • 2.1.2.8.2 Automatic Bounding Control
    • 2.1.2.8.3 Removing User Bounding
    • 2.1.2.8.4 Anti-Aliasing Options