These are links to sites generally connected to raytracing, including the POVray homepage and the raytracing newsgroup - also included here are sites with nice pictures. If you want links to general raytracing utilities, see the Utilities page.

Pictures and Personal Sites

• Björn Jónsson's 3D Rendering Page - Björn has a brilliant website containing (among other things) the most realistic and up-to-date maps of the Galilean Satellites (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) that I have ever seen, derived from the very latest publically-released Galileo images - most planetary scientists don't even have 'em this good yet! All the images on his site are constructed using his own renderer, which is unique as far as I know because it is photometrically-realistic (no other raytracer that I know of uses the correct light scattering functions for different planetary surfaces) - as a result the images look stunning. Defnitely a must-see, especially if you're doing renderings of the Jovian system!!

• Anders' Raytracing Page - The Raytracing Hub of Anders Sandberg (also renowned for his Mage RPG and Transhumanist Hubs) - this contains some really excellent (not to mention highly unusual and imaginative) images. Well worth checking out!!

• James Hastings-Trew's Planetary Pixel Emporium - James Hastings-Trew has a good collection of planetary maps - worth browsing through!

• Galen's Raytracing page - a page of planetary raytracings by Galen Raben.

• The Silent Universe - Sadly this site seems to have disappeared - it was at http://otomo.simplenet.com/SU/html/menu.html but it seems to have vanished off the face of the Web, which is a great shame. I only wish more websites could have been like this - full of original, thought-provoking material and beautiful pictures; for me, this was one of the best sites on the whole web. It took the form of a sci-fi 'history' of man's exploration of an eerily empty universe full of the ruins of past civilisations. The 'photos' were all rendered using KPT Bryce, and they were incredible - very atmospheric, especially when viewed along with the text. If anyone knows where it's moved to (or even if it's still online), please let me know so I can re-activate the link!

• Animalu - Jeff Alu has made some great images and animations for JPL (particularly of Mars Global Surveyor), and has also discovered quite a few comets and asteroids too! His site has lots of samples of his work.

• Nick's Povray Library - Another space-art site, Nick's made some brilliant hand-made POV models of Discovery and the Space Station from 2001 - and he's made the source code available too! However, note that his model of Voyager (the NASA/JPL one, not Star Trek!!) is very unrealistic - if you want a realistic-looking Voyager I suggest you take a look at Voyager for POVRay here on my site instead.

POVray sites

• The Official POVray homepage - check this out for the latest versions of POVRay. It's available for DOS, Apple Mac, Windows (which is what I use), i86 Linux, SunOS, and Amiga, and source code is also provided for porting to other formats! I think this is the best raytracer around (it knocks spots off Vistapro and Bryce, and it's better in many ways that Lightwave too - I've tried them!).

• comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing - the newsgroup devoted to raytracing, specifically POVray. The people on this are great - if you have a question about techniques using POVray, post it to the group and you'll get it answered!!

General Links

• Making Animations for the Web - a BRILLIANT site that takes you step-by-step through the creation of animations in a variety of formats, for a variety of platforms. A godsend to would-be animators, and it contains lots of links, tips, and utilities! The PC section is here.

• 3-D Starmaps - an amazing collection of utilities, programs, and loads of background on how to make 3D starmaps, that could probably be adapted to POVray without too much difficulty.