Section 2.4.3
PC Graphics Area on America On-Line

There's an area now on America On-Line dedicated to POV-Ray support and information. You can find it in the PC Graphics section of AOL. Jump keyword POV (the keyword PCGRAPHICS brings you to the top of the graphics related section). This area includes the Apple Macintosh executables also. It is best if messages are left in the Company Support section. Currently, Bill Pulver (BPulver) is our representative there.

Section 2.4.4
The Graphics Alternative BBS in El Cerrito, CA

For those on the West coast, you may want to find the POV-Ray files on The Graphics Alternative BBS. It's a great graphics BBS run by Adam Shiffman. TGA is high quality, active and progressive BBS system which offers both quality messaging and files to its 1300+ users.

  510-524-2780 (PM14400FXSA v.32bis 14.4k, Public)
  510-524-2165 (USR DS v.32bis/HST 14.4k, Subscribers)

Section 2.4.5
PCGNet

The Professional CAD and Graphics Network (PCGnet) serves both the CAD and Graphics communities by making information useful to them widely available.

Formerly known as ADEnet, PCGnet is a new network created from the ground up, incorporating new nodes and focusing evenly on both CAD and graphics related topics, including, but not limited to the following topics: design, drafting, engineering, 2d and 3d modeling, multimedia, systems, raster imaging, raytracing, 3d rendering and animation.

PCGnet is designed to serve the needs of all callers by stimulating interest and generating support forums for active users who have an interest in the CAD and graphics related topics previously mentioned; interest and support is generated through PCGnet's message conferences, file sharing across the network, and industry news and press releases. PCGnet's message conference are moderated forums designed to accommodate friendly, yet professional and informative discussion of CAD and graphics related subjects.

TGA BBS serves as the central hub for a large network of graphics-oriented BBS systems around the world. Following is a concise listing of active PCGNet nodes at the time of this writing. The POV-Team can not vouch for the currency of this information, nor verify that any of these boards may carry POV-Ray.

USA and Canada
  411-Exchange                 Alpharetta        GA      404-345-0008
  Autodesk Global Village      San Rafael        CA      415-507-5921
  CAD/Engineering Services     Hendersonville    TN      615-822-2539
  Canis Major                  Nashville         TN      615-385-4268
  CEAO BBS                     Columbus          OH      614-481-3194
  CHAOS BBS                    Columbia          MO      314-874-2930
  Joes CODE BBS                West Bloomfield   MI      810-855-0894
  John's Graphics              Brooklyn Park     MN      612-425-4436
  PC-AUG                       Phoenix           AZ      602-952-0638
  SAUG BBS                     Bellevue          WA      206-644-7115
  Space Command BBS            Kennewick         WA      509-735-4894
  The CAD/fx BBS               Mesa              AZ      602-835-0274
  The Drawing Board BBS        Anchorage         AK      907-349-5412
  The Graphics Alternative     El Cerrito        CA      510-524-2780
  The Happy Canyon             Denver            CO      303-759-3598
  The New Graphics BBS         Piscataway        NJ      908-271-8878
  The University               Shrewsbury Twp    NJ      908-544-8193
  The Virtual Dimension        Oceanside         CA      619-722-0746
  Time-Out BBS                 Sadsburyville     PA      610-857-2648

Australia
  MULTI-CAD Magazine BBS       Toowong QLD              61-7-878-2940
  My Computer Company          Erskineville NSW         61-2-557-1489
  Sydney PCUG Compaq BBS       Caringbah NSW            61-2-540-1842
  The Baud Room                Melbourne VIC            61-3-481-8720

Austria
  Austrian AutoCAD User Group  Graz                    43-316-574-426

Belgium
  Lucas Visions BBS            Boom                     32-3-8447-229

Denmark
  Horreby SuperBBS             Nykoebing Falster        45-53-84-7074

Finland
  DH-Online                    Jari Hiltunen           358-9-40562248
  Triplex BBS                  Helsinki                358-9-5062277

France
  CAD Connection               Montesson                33-1-39529854
  Zyllius BBS!                 Saint Paul                 33-93320505

Germany
  Ray BBS Munich               Munich                    49-89-984723
  Tower of Magic               Gelsenkirchen            49-209-780670

Netherlands
  BBS Bennekom: Fractal Board  Bennekom                 31-318-415331
  CAD-BBS                      Nieuwegein               31-30-6090287
                                                        31-30-6056353
  Foundation One               Baarn                    31-35-5422143

New Zealand
  The Graphics Connection      Wellington               64-4-566-8450
  The Graphics Connection II   New Plymouth             64-6-757-8092
  The Graphics Connection III  Auckland                 64-9-309-2237

Slovenia
  MicroArt                     Koper                     386-66-34986

Sweden
  Autodesk On-line             Gothenburg                46-31-401718

United Kingdom
  CADenza BBS                  Leicester, UK          44-116-259-6725
  Raytech BBS                  Tain, Scotland         44-1862-83-2020
  The Missing Link             Surrey, England        44-181-641-8593

Country or long distance dial numbers may require additional numbers to be used. Consult your local phone company.

Section 2.4.6
POV-Ray Related Books and CD-ROMs

The following items were produced by POV-Team members. Although they are only current to POV-Ray 2.2 they will still be helpful. Steps are being taken to update the POV-Ray CDROM to version 3.0, with a new version expected around October 1996.

The books listed below have been recently listed as out-of-print but may still be found in some bookstores or libraries (Visit http://www.dnai.com:80/waite/ for more details).

  Ray Tracing Creations, 2d Ed.
  Chris Young and Drew Wells
  ISBN 1-878739-69-7
  Waite Group Press 1994
    700 pages with color insert and POV-Ray 2.2 on 3.5" MS-DOS disk.

  Ray Tracing Worlds with POV-Ray
  Alexander Enzmann, Lutz Kretzschmar, Chris Young,
  ISBN 1-878739-64-6
  Waite Group Press 1994
    Includes Moray 1.5x modeller and POV-Ray 2.2 on 3.5" MS-DOS disks.

  Ray Tracing for the Macintosh CD
  Eduard Schwan
  ISBN 1-878739-72-7
  Waite Group Press, 1994
    Comes with a CD-ROM full of scenes, images, and QuickTime movies,
    and an interactive keyword reference. Also a floppy with POV-Ray for
    those who don't have a CD ROM drive.

'The Official POV-Ray CDROM' The Official POV-Ray CDROM: The Official POV-Ray CDROM is a compilation of images, scene source, program source, utilities and tips on POV-Ray and 3D graphics from the Internet and Compuserve. This CD is aimed not only at those who want to create their own images or do general 3D programming work, but also at those who want simply to experience some high-quality renderings done by some of the best POV-Ray artists, and to learn from their source code. The CDROM contains over 500 ray-traced images.

It's a good resource for those learning POV-Ray as well as those who are already proficient, and contains a Microsoft Windows-based interactive tutorial. The disk comes with a fold-out poster and reference sheet. The CD is compatible with DOS/Windows and Macintosh formats.

The CDROM is available for free retrieval and browsing on the World Wide Web at http://www.povray.org/pov-cdrom. For more details you may also visit http://www.povray.org/povcd.

Section 3
Quick Start

The next section describes how to quickly install POV-Ray and render sample scenes on your computer. It is assumed that you are using an IBM-PC compatible computer with MS-DOS. For other platforms you must refer to the specific documentation included in archive that contains POV-Ray.

Section 3.1
Installing POV-Ray

Specific installation instructions are included with the executable program for your computer. In general, there are two ways to install POV-Ray.

[ Note that the generic word "directory" is used throughout. Your operating system may use another word (subdirectory, folder, etc.) ]

1) The messy way: Create a directory called POVRAY and copy all POV-Ray files into it. Edit and run all files and programs from this directory. This method works, but is not recommended.

Or the preferred way:

2) Create a directory called POVRAY and several subdirectories called INCLUDE, DEMO, SCENES, UTIL. The self-extracting archives used in some versions of the program will create subdirectories for you. If you create your own, the file tree for this should look something like this:

Copy the executable file and docs into the directory POVRAY. Copy the standard include files into the subdirectory INCLUDE. Copy the sample scene files into the subdirectory SCENES. And copy any POV-Ray related utility programs and their related files into the subdirectory UTIL. Your own scene files will go into the SCENES subdirectory. Also, you'll need to add the directories \POVRAY and \POVRAY\UTIL to your "search path" so the executable programs can be run from any directory.

Note that some operating systems don't have an equivalent to the multi-path search command.

The second method is a bit more difficult to set-up, but is preferred. There are many files associated with POV-Ray and they are far easier to deal with when separated into several directories.

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