Particle tracking using IDL
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Stepping through a POV-Ray file

This page examines a POV-Ray file to explain what each part is for. See also:
  1. Introduction / IDL routines -- The introduction page -- tells how to use IDL to generate a POV-Ray file. Start here.
  2. Stepping through a POV-Ray file (you are here)
  3. Running POV-Ray on a Linux computer
  4. Running POV-Ray on a Windows computer
  5. POV-Ray home page.

We're going to examine the file img01.pov which makes the picture at right. The file was generated with the following commands, which are described in more detail on the main page.

IDL> pts=fltarr(3,1000)
IDL> t=findgen(1000)/1000*3.14159*2*30
IDL> pts(0,*)=10*cos(t/3)
IDL> pts(1,*)=10*sin(t/5)
IDL> pts(2,*)=10*sin(t/2)
IDL> mkpov,pts,'img01.pov' IDL> $x-povray +Iimg01.pov +D 2>err

Let's look at this file: 

#include "colors.inc"
#include "shapes.inc"
#include "textures.inc"

These are include files that have predefined shapes, etc. the files are found in main povray "include" directory, and as long as you have the povray.ini file pointing there, this will work. 
camera {
   location <      11.0000      11.0000      64.0000>
   look_at  <      11.0000      11.0000      30.0000> }

This often needs to be changed. The default look_at is the center of the data provided, in other words, the camera always points towards your data. The 'location' is by default offset from your data in the z-direction ('above' the data) but you can move the camera other places. Typically the z-coordinate of the camera location needs to be adjusted. This sets the magnification of the picture. 
light_source { <13,12,65> color White}
You can place light sources of any color in any position. These are like lamps shining equally in all directions. 
background {color rgb <1,1,1>}
Pixels that aren't otherwise assigned a color get this color: <1,1,1> is equal to white. Note that I could have said also "color White" like I did for the light source. You can specify colors either with words (from the colors.inc include file) or with red/green/blue values. 
#declare R1 =      0.500000
#declare R2 =       1.00000
These two numbers set the radius of the spheres, and the radius of the cylinders, respectively. (The cylinders are used to draw the box around the data.) You may want to change these values. R1 is set by the keyword 'radius' to mkpov. But, you can change them after the fact by editing this pov file, that's why it's handy to have them set at the top of this file by the #declare statements. 
#declare ballfin = finish {
   reflection 0.0 diffuse 0.4 ambient 0.7 phong 1.0 phong_size 300}
This describes the surface of the spheres. Try playing with these numbers to see what they do. The numbers should be between 0 and 1 (except for phong_size). 
#declare redcolor = texture {
   pigment {color rgb <1,0,0>}
   finish { ballfin }}
Sets the default color of all the spheres. You can vary the red, green, blue values. 
#declare boxtex = texture {
   pigment {color rgb <0.6,0.8,1>}
   finish { reflection 0.0
      diffuse 0.4 ambient 0.7 phong 0.0 }}
Controls the appearance of the box. The color is light blue. 
sphere { <      21.0000      11.0000      30.0000>, R1
   texture { redcolor }}
sphere { <      20.9803      11.3769      30.9411>, R1
   texture { redcolor }}
sphere { <      20.9211      11.7533      31.8738>, R1
   texture { redcolor }}
 .
 .
 .
Here we just start listing the spheres. The format is to list the XYZ positions, then the radius (which is the previously defined value R1 in this case), then describe the surface of the ball (which is "redcolor" as previously defined). You can replace R1 with a number to control the size, and replace redcolor with the complete definition to control the color and appearance. 
cylinder {
<      1.00000,      1.00000,      20.0000>,
<      21.0000,      1.00000,      20.0000>,
R2
open
   texture { boxtex }}
 .
 .
 .
Here's where we draw the cylinders that form the light-blue box surrounding the data. For a cylinder, you specify the two endpoints, and a radius.

Other examples

From the file img03.pov: 
sphere { <      20.9803      11.3769      30.9411>, R1
  texture { 
    pigment {color rgb <      1.00000
,
      0.00000
,
   0.00392157
>}
    finish { ballfin }}}
First off, notice that it's OK to have extra spaces and returns in the file. So really if this wasn't computer generated it might look prettier to be like this: 
sphere { <20.9803 11.3769 30.9411>, R1
  texture { 
    pigment {color rgb <1.0, 0.0, 0.004>}
    finish { ballfin }}}
Here we've specified the red/green/blue values explicitly for this sphere, thus giving it it's own color.

This has just barely scratched the surface of what POV-Ray can do, so if you want fancier stuff, you should look at the official POV-Ray home page. I've tinkered with POV files to generate the various effects you see below, which include balls with different textures, transparent balls, multiple colored light sources, connecting nearest neighbor spheres, and different colors.

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