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<strong class="NavBar">POV-Ray 3.6 for UNIX documentation</strong><br> <strong>1.1.2
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<h3><a name="s01_01_02">1.1.2 </a>What is POV-Ray for Unix?</h3>
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POV-Ray for Unix is essentially a version of the POV-Ray rendering engine prepared for running on a Unix or
Unix-like operating system (such as GNU/Linux). It contains all the features of POV-Ray described in chapters 2 and 3
of the documentation, plus a few others specific to Unix and GNU/Linux systems. These additional features do not
affect the core rendering code. They only make the program suitable for running under an Unix-based system, and
provide the user with Unix-specific displaying capabilities. For instance, POV-Ray for Unix can use the X Window
System to display the image it is rendering. On GNU/Linux machines, it can also display the image directly on the
console screen using the SVGA library.
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<p>
POV-Ray for Unix uses the same scheme as the other supported platforms to create ray-traced images. The POV-Ray
input is platform-independant, as it is using text files (POV-Ray scripts) to describe the scene: camera, lights, and
various objects. An extensive discussion of the <a href="s_96.html#s03_02">POV-Ray Scene Description Language</a> can
be found elsewhere in this documentation.
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<h4><a name="s01_01_02_01">1.1.2.1 </a>... And What Is It Not?</h4>
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POV-Ray for Unix is not a modeller. It will not let you design scenes graphically on-screen. There are several
shareware and freeware programs available for this purpose. To write or modify POV-Ray scenes you just edit the actual
text file containing the commands.
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New users might be surprised to learn that, although this <em>sounds</em> primitive, it is in fact one of the
things that gives POV-Ray so much power and flexibility. There are many other rendering programs that give you a
point-and-click interface, but when it comes down to absolute control of your scene, it's hard to beat a text-based
scene description language (even though it's harder for some to learn).
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