Installing POV-Ray

Installing POV-Ray

Download and install the POV-Ray package

This only needs to be done once, but to do it you will need the following:

• Access to a web browser and an internet connection.
• Permission to download and install software on your machine.

In a tightly controlled corporate environment it may be necessary to enlist IT support for this.

Go to http://www.povray.org/download/

On Windows:

• Download the "Windows Binary" via the " Download Windows Installer " link which (at the time of writing) will download version 3.7
• This is a conventional WIndows self-installer, so just save the file and then run it, following the instructions to install it on your system

On Linux: (note: we have not done any testing on Linux, it may not work...)

• Go to the " old versions " page.
• Navigate to the Linux section and use the download link " Download (7.2 MB) via the web or via FTP " to obtain version 3.6 in binary form.
• Or you can download the 3.7 source code and build it if you are feeling brave...
  

Tell D3PLOT about where to find the executable.

D3PLOT needs to know where to find the executable, which on Windows will be filename pvengine64.exe. By default it will be installed in C:\Program Files\POV-Ray\v3.7\bin , although you can choose a different location when you install the software. This needs to be stored as the preference

d3plot*povray_executable: full_path_and_filename

There are two ways of doing this:

(1) Interactively within the software itself:

• Start D3PLOT and read in any model.
  
  
• Images, Ray tracing to map the ray tracing panel
  
  
• On the "Exec" line (outlined in red) use the file filter to locate the executable in its correct directory, which will update that line in white on grey.
  
  
• Use Save settings to oa_pref file (outlined in green) to update your home directory oa_pref file to contain this preference.

(2) Editing the oa_pref entry directly

• Using the Options, Edit prefs button bring up the preferences editor panel.
  
  
• Expand the [+]D3PLOT line
  
• Expand the [+]images line
• Click on povray_executable
• Tick the box to make it active
• Enter the full executable and pathname