updated by Mark Gordon for POV-Ray v3.5
updated by Nicolas Calimet and Christoph Hormann for POV-Ray v3.6
updated by James Holsenback for POV-Ray v3.7
updated by William F. Pokorny and Christoph Lipka for POV-Ray v3.8
povray [+Iinput_file] [+Ooutput_file] [+/-option ...] [INI_file]
This manual page only lists the basic POV-Ray and UNIX specific features and command-line options for this version of POV-Ray. For a complete description of the features of POV-Ray and its scene description language (a.k.a. POV-Ray SDL), or for a better explanation of the meaning of the command-line and INI file options, please consult the online documentation at http://wiki.povray.org/content/Documentation:Contents or the documentation capture that should accompany all versions of POV-Ray. The documentation is installed in PREFIX/share/doc/povray-3.8, where PREFIX is /usr/local by default, or a path specified when configuring the source package for compilation and installation.
http://www.povray.org
Some of the UNIX-specific features are:
ASCII graphics in the text-mode version allow a basic view of the current rendering on text-only terminals. An interrupt handler allows rendering to be interrupted in a safe way, so that any data not currently written to disk will be saved before exiting. Control-C or SIGINT will cause a user abort, and save the current rendering, before exiting. See kill(1) for more information. Platform and architecture-independent rendering means that the same scene will render in the same way on all computers and operating systems (with the exception of the rendering speed, of course).The command-line options are shown below with their corresponding INI file options. If the same option is specified multiple times, whether in INI files or on the command-line, the last such option overrides any previous ones, with the exception of the +L or Library_Path option, which is cumulative.
I<input_file_name> or Input_File_Name=file Specifies the input file to use. If the input file name is '-', the scene description will be read from the standard input. The
HI<header_include_file_name> or Include_Header=file Specifies a file as the first include file of a scene file. This can be used to always include a specific set of default include files used by all your scenes.
L<library_path> or Library_Path=path Specifies a directory to search for input files, include files, fonts, and image maps, if the specified file is not in the current directory. This may be specified multiple times to increase the number of directories to search.
MVn.n or Version=float Treat scene files as if they were version n.n instead of the current version. This may be overridden from within the scene file.
SU or Split_Unions=bool Split bounded CSG unions if children are finite. This allows automatic bounding of CSG objects to take place.
UR or Remove_Bounds=bool Remove unnecessary bounding objects. This allows automatic bounding of older scene files to take place.
BM1 or Bounding_Method=1 Enable BVH (Bounding Volume Hierarchy) bounding (the default).
BM2 or Bounding_Method=2 Enable BSP (Binary Space Partitioning) tree bounding.
Hn or Height=integer The image should be n pixels high.
Wn or Width=integer The image should be n pixels wide.
SRn or Start_Row=integer Start the rendering at row n from the top of the screen.
SR0.n or Start_Row=float Start the rendering n percent from the top of the screen.
ERn or End_Row=integer End the rendering at row n from the top of the screen.
ER0.n or End_Row=float End the rendering at n percent from the top of the screen.
SCn or Start_Column=integer Start the rendering at column n from the left of the screen.
SC0.n or Start_Column=float Start the rendering at n percent from the left of the screen.
ECn or Start_Column=integer End the rendering at column n from the left of the screen.
EC0.n or Start_Column=float End the rendering at n percent from the left of the screen.
C or Continue_Trace=bool Continue a previously interrupted scene trace.
CC or Create_Continue_Trace_Log=bool Create trace state file needed to later continue an interrupted scene trace.
P or Pause_When_Done=bool If previewing, pause when the rendering is complete before closing the window.
V or Verbose=bool Output verbose status messages on the progress of the rendering.
WLn or Warning_Level=integer Set warning level to n.
D or Display=bool Turns graphic display on/off, if program built with Simple DirectMedia Layer library.
SPn or Preview_Start_Size=integer Start mosaic preview with blocks n pixels square.
EPn or Preview_End_Size=integer End mosaic preview with blocks n pixels square.
UD or Draw_Vistas=bool Draw vista rectangles before rendering has been deprecated.
F[BCEHJNPT][n] or Output_to_File=bool Output_File_Type=char Store the rendered image using one of the available formats, namely BMP, Compressed TGA, OpenEXR, Radiance High Dynamic-Range, JPEG, PNG, PPM, and TGA given all the image libraries are available. If no image output option specified, output defaults to (PNG).
O<output_file> or Output_File_Name=file Write the output to the file named output_file, or the standard output if '-' is given as the output file name.
MIn or Max_Image_Buffer_Memory=n Sets the allowable size of the output image cache in megabytes.
MBn or Bounding=bool Bounding_Threshold=integer Use automatic bounding slabs if more than n objects are in the scene.
Qn or Quality=integer Render at quality n. Qualities range from 0 for rough images and 9 for complete ray-tracing and textures, and 10 and 11 add radiosity.
A0.n or Antialias=bool Antialias_Threshold=integer Do antialiasing on the pixels until the difference between adjacent pixels is less that 0.n, or the maximum recursion depth is reached.
AMn or Sampling_Method=integer Specify the method of antialiasing used, non-adaptive (n = 1), or adaptive antialiasing (n = 2).
Jn.n or Jitter=bool Jitter_Amount=float Specify maximum radius, in pixels, that antialiased samples should be jittered from their true centers.
Rn or Antialias_Depth=integer Set the maximum recursion depth for antialiased pixel sub-sampling.
UA or Output_Alpha=bool Use alpha channel for transparency mask.
UL or Light_Buffer=bool Use light buffer to speed up rendering has been deprecated.
UV or Vista_Buffer=bool Use vista buffer to speed up rendering has been deprecated.
Kn.n or Clock=float Render a single frame of an animation with the clock value n.n.
KFIn or Initial_Frame=integer Specify the initial frame number for an animation.
KFFn or Final_Frame=integer Specify the final frame number for an animation. This must be set at a value other that 1 in order to render multiple frames at once.
KIn.n or Initial_Clock=float Specify the clock value for the initial frame of an animation.
KFn.n or Final_Clock=float Specify the clock value for the frame final of an animation.
SFn or Subset_Start_Frame=integer Render a subset of frames from an animation, starting at frame n.
SF0.n or Subset_Start_Frame=float Render a subset of frames from an animation, starting n percent into the animation.
EFn or Subset_End_Frame=integer Render a subset of frames from an animation, stopping at frame n.
EF0.n or Subset_End_Frame=float Render a subset of frames from an animation, stopping n percent into the animation.
KC or Cyclic_Animation=bool Generate clock values for a cyclic animation.
UF or Field_Render=bool Rendering alternate frames using odd/even fields has been deprecated.
UO or Odd_Field=bool Starting a field rendered animation on the odd field rather than the even field has been deprecated.
GI<name> or Create_Ini=bool or Create_Ini=file Write all INI parameters to a file named after the input scene file, or one with the specified name.
G[ADFRSW]<name> or <Stream>_File=bool or <Stream>_File=file Write the stream to the console and/or the specified file. The streams are All_File (except status), Debug_File, Fatal_File, Render_File, Statistics_File, and the Warning_File.
0 if OK,
1 if minor problems (e.g. invalid options),
>1 if serioues trouble (e.g. Sementation fault).
POV-Ray for UNIX allows a povray.ini file in the current directory to override the individual setting in $HOME/.povray/3.8/povray.ini. POV-Ray looks for initial configuration information, like the Library_Path settings, which gives the location for the standard include files, first in the environment variable $POVINI, then in ./povray.ini, then in $HOME/.povray/3.8/povray.ini, then in PREFIX/etc/povray/3.8/povray.ini. The PREFIX directory can be changed at compile-time using the --prefix option of the configure script. For backward compatibility with POV-Ray version 3.5 and earlier, the $HOME/.povrayrc and $PREFIX/etc/povray.ini files are also searched for when none of the above files were found.
Since version 3.5 POV-Ray features an I/O Restriction mechanism. I/O Restrictions attempt to at least partially protect a machine running POV-Ray from having files read or written outside of a given set of directories. The settings are defined in two configuration files, a system-level PREFIX/etc/povray/3.8/povray.conf file and an user-level $HOME/.povray/3.8/povray.conf file with more restrictive settings. As of POV-Ray v3.6 the format of these configuration files has changed, and no backward compatibility is retained with the configuration files in POV-Ray 3.5. See the documentation for further details and examples of I/O Restriction settings.
POV-Ray is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
POV-Ray is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
Chris Cason Christoph Lipka
With Assistance From: (Alphabetically)
Jerome Grimbert James Holsenback William F. Pokorny
Past Contributors: (Alphabetically)
Steve Anger Eric Barish Dieter Bayer David K. Buck Nicolas Calimet Chris Cason Aaron A. Collins Chris Dailey Steve Demlow Andreas Dilger Alexander Enzmann Dan Farmer Thorsten Froehlich Mark Gordon Jerome Grimbert James Holsenback Christoph Hormann Mike Hough Chris Huff Kari Kivisalo Nathan Kopp Lutz Kretzschmar Christoph Lipka Jochen Lippert Pascal Massimino Jim McElhiney Douglas Muir Juha Nieminen Ron Parker William F. Pokorny Bill Pulver Eduard Schwan Wlodzimierz Skiba Robert Skinner Yvo Smellenbergh Zsolt Szalavari Scott Taylor Massimo Valentini Timothy Wegner Drew Wells Chris Young
Other contributors are listed in the documentation at: http://wiki.povray.org/content/Documentation