Povray

Overview

The Persistence of Vision Raytracer (POV-Ray) is a is a high-quality free tool for rendering images of 3-dimensional scenes.

Restrictions on Use

Accessible to all users of the system. Please read the license/copyright notice before using this software. POV-Ray was compiled from source – please refer to the source license.

Setup Procedure

Two versions are available: 3.7 (supports SMP multi-threaded rendering) and 3.6.1 (single-core only). Load the required modulefile using:

module load apps/intel-12.0/povray/3.7

or

module load apps/intel-12.0/povray/3.6.1

Running the Application

POV-Ray must be run in batch. Do not run POV-Ray on the login node. Version 3.7 will perform multithreaded rendering but you must tell Povray how many threads to use (even if using 1 core) otherwise it will grab all cores on a node.

You must also prevent Povray from opening a preview window while rendering because you are running in batch.

See the example jobscripts below for the required flags. Note that there is no space between the flag and its value (e.g., +w320 to specify an output image width of 320 pixels).

v3.7 Serial batch job submission

You must ensure POV-Ray does not try to open a preview window while rendering. Use the -D for this. The following job script will run POV-Ray in batch:

#!/bin/bash
#$ -S /bin/bash
#$ -cwd
#$ -V
#### Serial job hence no -pe option needed

# Specify number of Workers Threads (+WT options) even if serial job
# Read example input file named scenes/advanced/biscuit.pov (+I option)
# (will search for files relative to install location if not found locally)
# Output to a .png file (default) named myimage.png (+O option)
# Image width = 320 pixels, height = 240 pixels
# DO NOT open a preview window (-D option)

povray +WT$NSLOTS +Iscenes/advanced/biscuit.pov +Omyimage.png +W320 +H240 -D

Submit your job using

qsub jobscript

where jobscript is the name of your jobscript.

Once the job has completed image files can be viewed using gthumb or eog.

v3.7 Parallel batch job submission

You must ensure POV-Ray does not try to open a preview window while rendering. Use the -D for this. The following job script will run POV-Ray in batch:

#!/bin/bash
#$ -S /bin/bash
#$ -cwd
#$ -V
#$ -pe smp.pe 8    # Example: Use 8 cores

# Specify number of Workers Threads (+WT options) even if serial job
# Read example input file named scenes/advanced/biscuit.pov (+I option)
# (will search for files relative to install location if not found locally)
# Output to a .png file (default) named myimage.png (+O option)
# Image width = 320 pixels, height = 240 pixels
# DO NOT open a preview window (-D option)

povray +WT$NSLOTS +Iscenes/advanced/biscuit.pov +Omyimage.png +W320 +H240 -D

Submit your job using

qsub jobscript

where jobscript is the name of your jobscript.

Once the job has completed image files can be viewed using gthumb or eog.

v3.6.1 Serial batch job submission

You must ensure POV-Ray does not try to open a preview window while rendering. Use the -D for this. The following job script will run POV-Ray in batch:

#!/bin/bash
#$ -S /bin/bash
#$ -cwd
#$ -V
#### Serial job hence no -pe option needed

## This version is serial-only so no +WT option needed.
# Read example input file named scenes/advanced/biscuit.pov (+I option)
# (will search for files relative to install location if not found locally)
# Output to a .png file (default) named myimage.png (+O option)
# Image width = 320 pixels, height = 240 pixels
# DO NOT open a preview window (-D option)

povray +Iscenes/advanced/biscuit.pov +Omyimage.png +W320 +H240 -D

Submit your job using

qsub jobscript

where jobscript is the name of your jobscript.

Once the job has completed image files can be viewed using gthumb or eog.

Further Info

There are many POV-Ray command line options. Use man povray to read the manual page.

Online documentation is available at http://www.povray.org/documentation/.

Updates

19-Dec-13 Added v3.7