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Ray Tracing for the Macintosh CD (uses POV-Ray) by Eduard Schwan Recommended

ISBN: 1-878739-72-7       Publisher: Waite Group       Pages: 180pp+CD       Price: £?

Categories:   graphics     macintosh

Reviewed by Peter Tillier in C Vu 8-5 (Jul 1996)

This book explains the basics of ray tracing and how to use the provided software (POV-Ray) on your Mac-intosh to generate some stunningly realistic graphics images. The image descriptions are written in a language that is obviously based on C and C++; so C VU readers should have little trouble in learning it. Detailed examples are provided of both static and animated POV-Ray scenes and the book contains a number of colour plates produced using POV-Ray.

The main problem is that you need a pretty powerful Mac to generate ('render' in the book) the images. I tried a very simple image 100 by 100 pixels and on a 68020-based Mac LC II without a maths co-processor this took about 17 minutes to finish. A more complex image of the same size would take longer! There's nothing for it but to go and buy an fpu and more memory or, preferably, a top-range Power Mac to improve the rendering speed.

The software is easy to use (like most Mac software) and is based on the original PC version. It is provided on both disc and CD ROM - the latter also contains a number of image description files and utilities. If you have access, examples of images produced using POV-Ray are available from the GRAPHDEV forum on Compuserve.

The book itself is easy to read and informative and is reasonably priced. I would probably have bought this if I had discovered it amongst the welter of PC Web and Internet books in most stores.