Provided by: povray_3.7.0.10-3build4_amd64 
NAME
povray - POV-Ray: The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer
SYNOPSIS
povray [+Ooutput_file] [+/-option ...] [input_file]
povray [+Iinput_file] [+Ooutput_file] [+/-option ...] [INI_file]
DESCRIPTION
POV-Ray is a free, full-featured ray tracer, written and maintained by a team of volunteers on the
Internet. On the UNIX platform POV-Ray can be compiled with support for preview capabilities using the X
Window System.
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 documentation that should accompany all versions of POV-Ray. The
documentation is installed in PREFIX/share/doc/povray-3.7, where PREFIX is /usr/local by default, or a
path specified when configuring the source package for compilation and installation.
Some of the UNIX-specific features are:
Support for X Window display automatically uses the best visual class and deepest depth available.
For visuals that do not support 24 bits of color per pixel, Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion
dithering is used, along with a dynamically allocated and optimized palette to produce the best
display possible with the current visual, depth, and available colormap.
ICCCM compliance for the X Window version means that the preview window will behave like standard
X Window programs, communicate properly with the window manager, and will accept the standard
command-line options. See X(1) for more information.
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).
OPTIONS
Options can be specified with either a leading '+' or a leading '-'. Many options are switches, meaning
a '+' turns the option on, and a '-' turns the option off. For other options, it doesn't matter if a '+'
or a '-' is used. Most options cannot have spaces in them so you should specify +FN rather than +F N,
and combining options is not allowed, so +SC is very different from +S +C. Options are not case
sensitive.
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.
Parsing options:
I<input_file_name> or Input_File_Name=file
Specifies the input file to use. Only real files are supported. Using '-' as the input file name,
to read from the standard input, is deprecated.
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.
Output options:
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 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.
X or Test_Abort=bool
Enable the 'q' and 'Q' keys to interrupt a rendering in progress.
Xn or Test_Abort_Count=integer
Only check every n pixels for a user abort.
Output options - display related:
D[0][GHT] or Display=bool Palette=char
Display the rendering in progress, optionally specifying the palette. The only valid X Window
palette option is G, which forces grayscale preview. The X Window palette is based on the visual
used, whether selected automatically by POV-Ray or via the -visual option. To specify the
palette, you must first specify the display type (the second character, shown here as '0') for
compatibility reasons, even though it is ignored in UNIX versions.
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.
Output options - file related:
F[CEHJNPST][n] or Output_to_File=bool Output_File_Type=char
Store the rendered image using one of the available formats, namely Compressed TGA, OpenEXR,
Radiance High Dynamic-Range, JPEG, PNG, PPM, System specific (PNG) and TGA.
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.
Tracing options:
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.
Animation options:
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
Render alternate frames using odd/even fields, suitable for interlaced output.
UO or Odd_Field=bool
Start a field rendered animation on the odd field, rather than the even field.
Redirecting options:
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.
X Window System options:
In addition to the standard command-line options, POV-Ray recognizes additional command-line switches
related to the X Window System. See X(1) for a complete description of these options.
-display <display_name>
Display preview on display_name rather than the default display. This is meant to be used to
change the display to a remote host. The normal dispay option +d is still valid.
-geometry [WIDTHxHEIGHT][+XOFF+YOFF]
Render the image with WIDTH and HEIGHT as the dimensions, and locate the window XOFF from the left
edge, and YOFF from the top edge of the screen (or if negative the right and bottom edges
respectively). The WIDTH and HEIGHT, if given, override any previous Wn and Hn settings.
-help Display the X Window System-specific options. Use -H by itself on the command-line to output the
general POV-Ray options.
-icon Start the preview window as an icon.
-title <window_title>
Override the default preview window title with window_title.
-visual <visual_type>
Use the deepest visual of visual_type, if available, instead of the automatically selected visual.
Valid visuals are StaticGray, GrayScale, StaticColor, PseudoColor, TrueColor, or DirectColor.
RESOURCES
Currently no X resource or app-default files are supported for the X Window options.
FILES
POV-Ray for UNIX allows a povray.ini file in the current directory to override the individual setting in
$HOME/.povray/3.7/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/3.7/povray.ini, then in
PREFIX/etc/povray/3.7/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/3.7/povray.conf file and an user-level $HOME/.povray/3.7/povray.conf file with more
restrictive settings. As of POV-Ray 3.6 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.
povlegal.doc should accompany all installations of POV-Ray, and outlines specific conditions and
restrictions on the POV-Ray software. A condition of povlegal.doc requires that documentation, INI and
scene files be available to all users of POV-Ray. Scene and INI files are typically installed in
PREFIX/share/povray-3.7, and documentation in PREFIX/share/doc/povray-3.7, but these may be in other
locations on some systems.
The most recent version of POV-Ray and its documentation can always be retrieved via anonymous FTP at
ftp.povray.org or via HTTP at povray.org, as well as many other locations.
SEE ALSO
X(1), kill(1), The POV-Ray Manual
COPYRIGHT
Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer (POV-Ray)
Copyright 1991-2013 Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.
For further information see the file povlegal.doc that comes with this program.
The X Window System is
Copyright 1984 - 1991 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Copyright 1992 - 1996 the X Consortium, Inc.
Copyright 1998 the Open Group, L.L.C.
Copyright 1999 - 2004 the X.Org Foundation, L.L.C.
TRADEMARKS
The terms Persistence of Vision Raytracer and POV-Ray are trademarks of Persistence of Vision Raytracer
Pty. Ltd.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the US and other countries.
BUGS
Before reporting a bug to our bug-tracking system bugs.povray.org you should make sure you have the
latest version of the software, in case the bug has already been fixed. There are a large number of
POV-Ray users on the POV-Ray newsserver news.povray.org and a list of available groups can be found on
povray.org/resources/newsgroups. You should try to find help and assistance in there before lodging a bug
report.
AUTHORS
Primary POV-Ray 3.7 Architects/Developers: (Alphabetically)
Chris Cason Thorsten Froehlich Christoph Lipka
With Assistance From: (Alphabetically)
Ton van den Broek Nicolas Calimet Jerome Grimbert James Holsenback
Christoph Hormann Nathan Kopp Juha Nieminen
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 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
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.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
POV-Ray is based on DKBTrace 2.12 by David K. Buck and Aaron A. Collins.
POV-Team July 2021 POV-Ray(1)