
@C4@M@bIntroduction


This document details the use of the Persistence of Vision(tm) Ray-Tracer
(POV-Ray(tm)). It is broken down into four parts: the installation guide, the
tutorial guide, the reference guide and the appendix. The first part (see
chapter "Program Description" and chapter "Quick Start") tells you where to
get and how to install POV-Ray. It also gives a short introduction to
ray-tracing. The tutorial explains step by step how to use the different
features of POV-Ray (see chapter "Beginning Tutorial"). The reference gives a
complete description of all features available in POV-Ray by explaining all
available options (set either by command line switches or by INI file
keywords) and the scene description language (see chapter "POV-Ray Reference"
, chapter "POV-Ray Options" and chapter "Scene Description Language"). The
appendix includes some tips and hints, suggested reading, contact addresses
and legal information.


1.1              Notation

Throughout this document the following notation is used to mark keywords of
the scene description language, command line switches, INI file keywords and
file names.

  name  scene description keyword
  name  command line option
  name  INI file keyword
  name  file name
  name  Internet address, Usenet group


In the plain ASCII version of the document there is no difference between the
different notations.
