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Ray Tracing Worlds with POV-RAY by A Enzmann Recommended

ISBN: 1-878739-64-6       Publisher: Waite Group       Pages: 430pp+disk       Price: £40-99

Categories:   graphics

Reviewed by Francis Glassborow in C Vu 7-1 (Nov 1994)

This book is a tutorial and documentation for the new version of POV-RAY (2.2). It also includes documentation for MORAY - a wireframe modelling program. If you haven't already tried POV-RAY but own a PC with reasonable graphics resources it is time you did. Even if you never have a commercial use for ray-tracing you should be aware of what can now be achieved - the rate of development in this area is staggering.

If you haven't tried it before you might benefit from starting with the book I reviewed about a year ago (Ray Tracing Creations) but with that caveat this further enhances the reputations of all involved with the POV-RAY project and the wisdom of the Waites Group Press in getting involved in the publishing side.

I have just realised that some of you won't know what POV-RAY is. It is a program to do 3D textured models and scenes on an IBM clone. The quality of the results is staggering even though complex ones are time consuming, but think of all the idle time your computer has while you are sleeping or earning a living.