Free povray software for linux

KIO-POV is a KDE IO-Slave for the Persistence of Vision Raytracer (POV-Ray).
It provides an easy-to-use interface to POV-Ray for rendering scenes, viewing render results, render logs and information about POV-Ray files. For example if you want to render the scene /usr/local/share/povray-3.6/scenes/advanced/biscuit.pov (which comes with POV-Ray) you just open:
pov:/usr/local/share/povray-3.6/scenes/advanced/biscuit.pov?render
in konqueror (or in a KDE image editor if you want to edit the image) and you get the image rendered by POV-Ray.
Render results are cached so when you access the same render twice without modifying the scene you will not have to wait for the render to finish again.
Apart from the basic rendering mode which returns a PNG image you can also access information summaries about the scene in HTML form (see screenshot) and view the log file of the render. If POV-Ray reports errors while processing the scene the error message will be shown as well.
KIO-POV also supports MegaPOV. MegaPOV scenes are automatically rendered with MegaPOV if it is installed.
Note KIO-POV requires POV-Ray 3.6 or 3.6.1 to function properly. It is strongly recommended to install the latest official version from the POV-Ray website (both the source and the binary version will work).
If you want to report bugs in KIO-POV or otherwise want to contact me about it you can do so via the povray.tools.general newsgroup on the POV-Ray newsserver. For KDE-related questions the KDE mailing lists will also be helpful.
Enhancements:
- adding animation support (using ffmpeg)
- adding inline render previews in the file information pages
- fixing various bugs

stl2pov reads an STL (Standard Triangulation Language) file and outputs a POVray mesh.
stl2pov has been tested with STL files generated by Pro/Engineer.
BUILDING THE PROGRAM
For building on FreeBSD and other systems with the GNU toolset, see the instructions in the file INSTALL. After installation, a manual page for this program can be read with man stl2pov. Additional documentation is available in the documentation directory. See the Makefile.
I have set up a cross-compiler to produce a win32 binary. You can find it in the file stl2pov-2.3.0.zip on my website; http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/software/
If anyone wants to donate makefiles or project files for other systems and compilers I will be happy to include them in the distribution.
Enhancements:
- Follow the new syntax for povray: use triangle instead of facet.

Geomorph is a height field generator and editor for Linux.
It features tools for generating height fields from subdivision and surface addition algorithms, with fine control of frequencies, output to 16-bit PNG files from 128x128 to 4096x4096 pixels, a pen for drawing height fields chunks or craters, and tools for eroding, stratifying, and smoothing the height fields.
Geomorph offers a multiple window environment with OpenGL preview, undo and redo functions, and basic controls for Povray rendering. English, French, and German localizations are included along with English and French tutorials.
Main features:
- An environment allowing multiple documents in multiple windows.
- Output in PNG files with 16 bits per channel, from 128x128 to 4096x4096 pixels, giving 65536 levels from black to white.
- Tools to generate height fields by simple subdivision or repeated sum of an arbitrary surface.
- A fractal pen for drawing irregular surfaces.
- Pens for drawing smooth strokes, craters, faults, cracks and fissures.
- Edit and transform tools appropriate to image editing - brightness/contrast and the like (few "paint" programs can edit 16 bits per channel images).
- Edit and transform tools relevant to height field editing - erosion, quantization ("terraces"), cityscapes, and the like.
- A Povray run button, for testing the current image with a scene you select.
- An undo/redo history, with multiple levels. The default history stacks has 5 levels, but this parameter can be adjusted in the configuration file.
- A display scale control.
- An OpenGL preview (MesaGL).
- A tool for editing configuration files, where default directories and other parameters are saved.
Enhancements:
- This version provides new tools for creating crack networks, raising the edges of flat surfaces, and increasing the height field noise.
- The erosion algorithm and the waves tool are improved. New POV-Ray scripts are proposed.
- The HTML documentation features new guides and tutorials related to the new tools and to the new POV-Ray scripts.

K3DSurf is a program who generate 3D surfaces with Mathematical formulas ( Parameter or Explicit equations).
A more advanced version is under construction so all your comments are welcome. K3DSurf program was made just for fun, to pass time and to learn some basic 3D drawing technics(without OpenGL).
If you cant run Linux, You can find an applet Java here : http://www.wintonet.com/java/j3dsurf.html. Its called J3DSurf...I hope also to finish a Gtk an Xwindow version soon(G3DSurf and X3DSurf).
Main features:
- Interactive visualization with mouse events (Right: Rotate, Middle: translate and left: Scale).
- Real time animation (rotation) and morph (by the introduction of t_time variable). Animation and morph can also be monitored by controls that affect the CPU usage and t_time step.
- Create screenshots by copying the draw window or by using the best ray tracer on the net: Povray.
- Create movie scene is also supported
- Generate Mesh files that describe the shape of the mathematical model.
- Supported formats are:
- 1. Povscript : Povray is the best ray tracer available on the net...and its free.
- 2. VRML2: to use with the majority of current browsers via an appropriate plug-in.
- 3. OBJ: a well-known file format supported by the majority of 3D applications (Blender, MAYA and Moray...).
Enhancements:
- General:
1) New GUI interface, with menus and toolbar.
2) Possibility to save a config file to store infos about colors and isosurfaces resolution.
- Isosurface:
1) The OpenGL viewer has the possibility to go as height as 10MTriangles/Grid 500 (such objects however require more than 15G of RAM or more than 1G of hard drive space for the equivalent .OBJ file).
2) Add possibility to export the "Minimal topology" as an .OBJ file: A new table for the Marching Cube algorithm was made from scratch (released under the GPL licence, we dont think such table is available on the net) that can generate a small amount of polygons compared to the original one.
3) Add Possibility to show more than one Isosurface.
4) Possibility to store/load/delete Isosurfaces formulas.
5) Possibility to turn ON/OF the new parser for fast math calculations.
5) New examples.
- Parametric:
Possibility to store/load parametric formulas.

OpenCSG project is a library that does image-based CSG rendering using OpenGL. OpenCSG is written in C++ and supports most modern graphics hardware using Microsoft Windows or the Linux operating system. OpenCSG-1.1.0 is the current version.
What is CSG, anyway? CSG is short for Constructive Solid Geometry and denotes an approach to model complex 3D-shapes using simpler ones. I.e., two shapes can be combined by taking the union of them, by intersecting them, or by subtracting one shape of the other. The most basic shapes, which are not result of such a CSG operation, are called primitives. Primitives must be solid, i.e., they must have a clearly defined interior and exterior. By construction, a CSG shape is also solid then.
Image-based CSG rendering (also z-buffer CSG rendering) is a term that denotes algorithms for rendering CSG shapes without an explicit calculation of the geometric boundary of a CSG shape. Such algorithms use frame-buffer settings of the graphics hardware, e.g., the depth and stencil buffer, to compose CSG shapes. OpenCSG implements a variety of those algorithms, namely the Goldfeather algorithm and the SCS algorithm, both of them in several variants.
Benefits:
CSG is often used as fundamental modeling technique in CAD/CAM applications. Here, image-based CSG rendering is the key to interactively manipulate CSG shapes. Since OpenCSG renders even complex CSG shapes fast, it can be advantageously used in such applications.
Raytracers such as PovRay have used CSG for shape modeling since long ago. Interactive modeling toolkits for such raytracers normally just ignore CSG commands, though. OpenCSG represents a valuable addition for such applications.
Overall, up to the present CSG rendering has been hardly used in interactive applications, since the necessary algorithms are complicated and error-prone. We hope that by providing a free library that is easy to use, fast, and versatile, CSG rendering can be made more mainstream than it currently is.
Usage:
The interface of OpenCSG is very easy to use. There is only a single abstract class called OpenCSG::Primitive. A Primitive object has an attribute Operation that denotes whether the primitive is intersected or subtracted. To use OpenCSG, create a derived concrete primitive class by implementing the render() method.
To actually do the CSG rendering, there is the function OpenCSG::render() that takes a std::vector as argument. The render function evaluates the CSG expression given by the array of primitives and initializes the z-buffer with the proper values for the CSG expression. The color buffer remains unchanged, so afterwards, you must shade the primitives in the array using a GL_EQUAL depth function.
Note that the render function does not evaluate a generic CSG tree that also would contain unions of CSG shapes. It has been shown that a generic CSG tree can be converted into an equivalent set of CSG expressions that the render function can handle. OpenCSG does not contain the functionality for this conversion since, after all, it is a rendering library.
Enhancements:
- OpenCSG can now use OpenGL frame buffer objects as an alternative to pbuffers to do the internal CSG rendering calculations.
- This potentially reduces the rendering overhead because no switching between different rendering contexts is required.
- Several other bugs have been fixed.

Truevision is a 3D modeler for Gnome and Povray.
Truevision is a 3D modeler for Gnome. It is still in developpement, so be carefull and save often.
Main features:
- create some objects :
- finite solid primitives : blob, box, sphere, cone, cylinder, torus, heightfield, superellipsoid, lathe, sphere
- finite patch primitive : disc
- infinite solid primitive : plane
- lights : point, cylindrical, spot, area, light groups
- csg operators : union, merge, intersection, difference
- athmospherics : background, skysphere, media, fog
- manipulate them ( rotate, scale, translate ... )
- manipulate and edit the camera.
- render the scene with the multithreaded povray frontend.
- create and edit materials , with preview in editor.
- output the scene to povray .
- save and load scenes, objects, and materials.
- save materials with preview in material library.