<!-- This file copyright Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd. 2003-2004 -->
<html>
<head>
<!-- NOTE: In order to users to help find information about POV-Ray using -->
<!-- web search engines, we ask you to *not* let them index documentation -->
<!-- mirrors because effectively, when searching, users will get hundreds -->
<!-- of results containing the same information! For this reason, the two -->
<!-- meta tags below disable archiving and indexing of this page by all -->
<!-- search engines that support these meta tags. -->
<meta content="noarchive" name="robots">
<meta content="noindex" name="robots">
<meta content="no-cache" http-equiv="Pragma">
<meta content="0" http-equiv="expires">
<title>2.1.1 Program Description</title>
<link href="povray35.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>
<table class="NavBar" width="100%">
<tr>
<td align="left" nowrap="" valign="middle" width="32">
<a href="s_48.html"><img alt="previous" border="0" src="prev.png"></a>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="middle" width="30%">
<a href="s_48.html">2.1 Introduction</a>
</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
<strong class="NavBar">POV-Ray 3.6 for UNIX documentation</strong><br> <strong>2.1.1
Program Description</strong>
</td>
<td align="right" valign="middle" width="30%">
<a href="s_50.html">2.1.2 What is Ray-Tracing?</a>
</td>
<td align="right" nowrap="" valign="middle" width="32">
<a href="s_50.html"><img alt="next" border="0" src="next.png"></a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h3><a name="s02_01_01">2.1.1 </a>Program Description</h3>
<dl class="famousquote">
<dt>
<em>You know you have been raytracing too long when ...<br> ... You wonder which raytracer God used.</em>
<dd>
<em>-- David Kraics</em>
</dl>
<p>
The Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer creates three-dimensional, photo-realistic images using a rendering technique
called ray-tracing. It reads in a text file containing information describing the objects and lighting in a scene and
generates an image of that scene from the view point of a camera also described in the text file. Ray-tracing is not a
fast process by any means, but it produces very high quality images with realistic reflections, shading, perspective
and other effects.
</p>
<br>
<table class="NavBar" width="100%">
<tr>
<td align="left" nowrap="" valign="middle" width="32">
<a href="s_48.html"><img alt="previous" border="0" src="prev.png"></a>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="middle" width="30%">
<a href="s_48.html">2.1 Introduction</a>
</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
<strong>2.1.1 Program Description</strong>
</td>
<td align="right" valign="middle" width="30%">
<a href="s_50.html">2.1.2 What is Ray-Tracing?</a>
</td>
<td align="right" nowrap="" valign="middle" width="32">
<a href="s_50.html"><img alt="next" border="0" src="next.png"></a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body> </html>
