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OS/2 Help File
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1994-07-21
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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1. Index ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
POV-Panel 1.0 Help Index
POV-Panel is a graphical interface for POV-Ray 2.0 This help file explains
the operation of POV-Panel. The following topics are available:
Introduction
Options Help
Menu Help
External Programs
History
Registration and Author Information
Tab to the topic of interest and press <Enter>, or double-click with the
mouse.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2. Introduction ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Introduction
POV-Panel is intended to help anyone who is not overly fond of typing out the
thirty or so command-line arguments to the POV-Ray compiler. I don't mean to
criticize POV-Ray here, only to note that with a product as complex as POV-Ray,
POV-Panel comes in very handy.
POV-Panel was developed for POV-Ray 2.0 and any derivatives thereof,
specifically OS/2 versions. POV-Panel will not be ported to any other
platforms. This is both because it was written in VX-REXX 2.0 which is not
available on any other platform, and also because I love OS/2, and have had it
up to here with most other PC "operating systems" (with the exception of
Linux).
You can edit your scripts and compile from POV-Panel, or if you prefer a
different editor, then you can set that up too, and hide the built-in editor.
All options supported on the OS/2 platform are available, which is to say that
there is no display-as-you-compile or press-a-key-when-done. You can also hook
up an output image viewer to POV-Panel.
If anyone has any wishes or comments, please mail me. Also, please register.
It is only $10. Here is a link to my personal info. You don't need to
register to make a comment, though, but if I add something you asked for, then
I think you should probably register. POV-Panel isn't nag-ware in any way,
however. It may become so in future version, if few people register.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3. Options Help ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Options Help
As you look at POV-Panel, you will notice that there are several group-boxes,
divided into "options". Help is available for the following options:
Image Options
File Options
Various Options
Execution Options
POV Script
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3.1. Image Options ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Image Options
The Image Options look like this:
These options control the image size, trace portion, anti-aliasing, jitter,
bounding slabs, and quality of the final image.
The overall final output image size is determined by the "Width" (x) and
"Height" (y) boxes. They are in pixels.
If you are continuing a trace, or only want to go to a certain point, enable
the "Trace Only Image Portion" check-box, and then set the relevant area in the
"X:" (from x), "to" (to x), "Y:" (from y), and "to" (to y) boxes. These are
in pixels.
Anti-aliasing gives a higher-quality image, but takes longer, and is usually
only enabled for the final image, or for fine detail pre-viewing. Anti-aliasing
is enabled with the "Enable" check-box in the "Anti-Aliasing" group-box. The
"Tolerance" and "Rays" values are for fine control (see POV-Ray manual), but
usually work well at their default settings. Enabling jitter is on by default,
which also improves the quality, but is dependent on anti-aliasing being on
(see manual).
Bounding slabs speeds up compilation without decreasing quality, and I am not
sure why the POV-Team allows it to be turned off, but if they do, I do. You
can set what the threshold is, however. If there are less objects than this
number, bounding slabs may not be faster, and so is disabled.
The "Quality" slider bar decides which of POV-Ray's options get used in the
compilation. Setting this to 9 gives maximum quality, while 1 gives only a
rough black-and-white sketch with no shadows. See the manual for more details.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3.2. File Options ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
File Options
The "File Options" determine the output format, and the output filename (if
relevant). Choose your desired format by clicking on the corresponding
radio-button. The filename extension is automatically set, so do not include
this in the filename.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3.3. Various Options ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Various Options
These options are the ones that probably won't be changed too often, and that
really didn't fit in all that nicely with the rest. They are more obscure than
the rest, and probably most people set them and leave them. In a future
version, if I run out of room on the screen, I may move these options to the
Settings notebook.
"POV Compatibility" sets the language level. This enables error-free
compilation of POV-Ray 1.x scripts with POV-Ray 2.x.
"Symbol Table Size" sets the number of symbols allowed. This is usually used
to conserve memory during compilation on memory-constrained systems (DOS).
"Buffer Size" is similar to "Symbol Table Size", and conserves memory when
necessary. These two options can usually just be left.
"Verbose" toggles the compilation message level between high and low.
I have had trouble getting "Allow Trace Interruption" to work properly, but
that is in the implementation of POV-Ray, not in POV-Panel. When it works, it
saves the picture when a button is pressed, to allow stopping a compilation
without losing the work to date (usually to allow sleep). This slows down the
compile, so use only when necessary. "Continue Trace" allows you to resume a
previously started picture.
Use the "Animation Clock" to set a clock value for animating a series of
pictures.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3.4. Execution Options ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Quick Options
You can switch the Trace Button between compiling and just displaying the
POV-Ray command. This can be useful for beginners who would like to learn
more, and want to see what they are doing, but also for more experienced users
who want to know exactly what they are doing.
In this mode, pressing the button displays the command rather than executing
it.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3.5. POV Script ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Built-In Editor
This is the built-in editor. It is a fairly mundane implementation of an MLE,
but is sufficiently nice for most work.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4. Menu Help ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Menu Help
Help for the following menus follows:
File
Utilities
Options
Help
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.1. File ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
File
The "File" menu consists of the following items:
New
Open...
Save
Save as...
Exit
These are fairly self-explanatory. Various menu options become disabled when
using an external editor. You will be prompted to save unsaved work if you
attempt an action which would lose changes if performed unconditionally.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.2. Utilities ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Utilities
The "Utilities" menu consists of the following items:
Editor
Image viewer
Moray
The "Editor" item becomes enabled when the built-in editor is disabled. It
launches a copy of the editor.
The "Image Viewer" item launches your favorite image viewer with the current
image in it. This has to be in TARGA format, as I haven't seen any editors
that allow for viewing other POV_Ray supported formats. If this is
inconvenient, mail me with details, and I'll see what I can do.
"Moray" launches Moray for you. It currently does nothing else.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.3. Options ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Options
The "Options" menu consists of the following items:
File paths
Preferences
Save options
"File paths" brings up the notebook for the path settings. It contains the
following pages:
POV-Ray Paths
Util Paths
Other Paths
Lib Paths 1 and 2
"Preferences" has two items:
Pause CMD before exit
Use built-in editor
"Pause CMD before exit" leaves the CMD window paused when the compilation is
complete. This is mainly useful if you keep working in the foreground, and
want to see what happened in the CMD window before it disappears. Unchecking
this is handy for starting 50 compiles, and then going to work. That frees up
some resources as each session finishes.
"Use built-in editor" enables and disables the MLE editor.
"Save options" saves all modified settings to the INI file immediately,
instead of waiting until application is closed.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.3.1. POV-Ray Paths ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
POV-Ray Paths
This option brings up the POV-Ray Paths settings:
Set the "POV_Ray EXE Path" to wherever you keep POV-Ray with the "Find"
button. This speeds up the compilations as the path doesn't have to be
traversed. This also allows you to rename the executable for whatever reason.
The "POV-Ray Manual Path" allows POV-Panel to find the manual for the item on
the Help menu.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.3.2. Util Paths ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Util Paths
After POV-Ray Paths is the Util Paths settings page:
Set the Moray path, the path of the program you use for viewing the output,
and the path of your external editor here, respectively.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.3.3. Other Paths ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Other Paths
The third page is the Other Paths settings page:
Set this to the path of the program you wish to use to view the manual.
Through judicious use of this setting and the manual path, you should be able
to accomodate almost any combination of viewers and file formats, in case you
want to convert the text file to INF, or whatever.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.3.4. Lib Paths 1 and 2 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Lib Paths 1 and 2
These screens are used to set up the ten! library paths that POV-Ray lets you
have (does anyone use ten paths ?). They look like the following:
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.4. Help ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Help
The "Help" menu consists of the following items:
Help index
POV-Ray manual
Product information
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.4.1. Help Index ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Help Index
You might be familiar with this item, as it brings you to the beginning of
this very box :) This is a useful starting point when you don't know what you
are looking for yet.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.4.2. POV-Ray manual ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
POV-Ray manual
This will look like whatever you have it set up as. I personally have it set
up as EPM with povray.doc, and it looks as follows:
Whatever program you have running here is beyond my control, and pretty much
independent to do what it wants.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.4.3. Product information ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Product information
The obligatory about box. This little about box tells you about the version,
who wrote it :) and when. If you click on the logo, you will get more
detailed version information. This may be useful to check when corresponding
with me about bugs (who, me?) and so on.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5. External Programs ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
External Programs
The following external programs can be hooked up to POV-Panel:
POV-Ray
POV-Ray Manual Viewer
External Editor
Output Image Viewer
Moray
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5.1. POV-Ray ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
POV-Ray
You pretty much have to set this one up :) When you press "Start Ray Trace
Now", you will get a screen something like this:
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5.2. POV-Ray Manual Viewer ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
POV-Ray Manual Viewer
When you have the Paths properly configured, you can press "POV-Ray Manual" on
the Help menu and read the POV-Ray manual. On my computer it looks like this:
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5.3. External Editor ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
External Editor
If you prefer using a different editor than the built-in one, then you can use
any editor of your choice. Just add the path to the Path setings, and disable
the internal editor. Then when you press "File", "Use..." you get a screen
something like this:
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5.4. Output Image Viewer ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Output Image Viewer
You can also hook up a picture viewer, and pressing "Image viewer" will get
you something like this:
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5.5. Moray ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Moray
I don't use DOS any more, so no picture here. When this is set up, it just
launches Moray from the command-line, with whatever options you put in the path
setting box.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6. POV-Panel History ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
POV-Panel History
1.0 POV-Panel 1.0 was originally developed in only 3 days, while studying
for exams (ah, such is the human mind). I came across a similar
product, but was dissatisfied with it, and hence POV-Panel was born.
It has since been polished, and cost me a fortune in midnight oil.
Plug: I must say that I am extremely impressed with Watcom VX-REXX 2.0b! It
is very easy and powerful, and I didn't encounter any problems I couldn't work
my way around. That is high praise indeed for such a new product. Just about
the only thing I could wish for is a bit more speed. Highly Recommended. The
people at Watcom were very helpful in listening to my problems, and making
suggestions. Special thanks go to Eric Guiguere and Paul Prescod for helping
out with a couple of tricky areas. They can be found rummaging around
comp.lang.rexx on the Internet. By the way, I have no association with Watcom,
apart from loving their products.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 7. About The Author... ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Carsten Whimster
Carsten is an undergraduate Computer Science student at the University of
Waterloo, and an huge OS/2 enthusiast as of OS/2 2.0. He is currently in his
third year, taking operating system, language, and compiler courses whenever
possible. This summer and fall he is working at the University of Waterloo as
a tutor (course assistant) for CS241, an introductory course to compilers. He
is also a TEAM-OS/2 member.
Carsten is a beginning OS/2 PM programmer with a few projects on the go, and
many more in his head. He uses Watcom C/C++ 10.0, Watcom VX-REXX 2.0b, and
occasionally emx08h with gcc 2.5.7.
Carsten is the associate editor for EDM/2, which is why he is familiar enough
with IPFC to go to all the trouble of making a decent help-facility for such a
small program. EDM/2 is a free programmer's newsletter for OS/2 developers,
and can be found (among other places) at ftp-os2.cdrom.com in
pub/os2/2_x/program/newsltr.
You may reach Carsten...
...via email:
bcrwhims@uwaterloo.ca - Internet
gopher://descartes.math.uwaterloo.ca:70/h0/mathSOC/.csc/.www/.bcrwhimster/homepage.html
- Mosaic homepage
To register, send money ($10 US or CAN) and directions on how to contact you
to:
Carsten Whimster
318 Spruce Street, main house
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
POV-Ray 2.0 for OS/2 can be found at ftp-os2.cdrom.com in the
pub/os2/2_x/graphics.
The Persistence of Vision RayTracer is copyrighted by the POV-Team.