POV-Ray

32 likes

The Persistence of Vision Raytracer is a high-quality, totally free tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. It is available in official versions for Windows, Mac OS/Mac OS X and i86 Linux. The source code is available for those wanting to do their own ports.

Tiffany Cheerio

Cost / License

Free
Open Source (AGPL-3.0)

Platforms

Windows
Linux

Tribute to Myrna Lo

Pebbles

POV-Ray alternatives

32likes

0articles

Features

Translucency
Importance sampling
Physically-Based Rendering
Multi-threaded architecture
Volumetric Media (Absorb/Emit/Scatter)
Untesselated geometry
Chromatic dispersion
Global Illumination (Radiosity)
Depth of Field
Dielectric materials
Pause Render process
Uv mapping
Render baking (Mesh Camera)
Final Gathering
Multi color spaces / Color management
Vertex colors
Intuitive Scene Description Language
48-bit color Input / output

Tags

POV-Ray News & Activities

Highlights All activities

Recent activities

pixelcruncher added POV-Ray as alternative to Rayscaper
6 days ago
Mateusz-Cie-wierz added POV-Ray as alternative to Raya
6 days ago
tutifruti liked POV-Ray
16 days ago

POV-Ray information

Developed by
Unknown
Licensing
Open Source (AGPL-3.0) and Free product.
Written in
C++
Alternatives
41 alternatives listed
Badge
Get an embeddable badge for POV-Ray
Supported Languages
- English

AlternativeTo Category

Photos & Graphics

GitHub repository

1,516 Stars
305 Forks
223 Open Issues
Updated Oct 7, 2026

Popular alternatives

POV-Ray was added to AlternativeTo by jenocin on Nov 26, 2009 and this page was last updated Jun 26, 2020.

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Official Links

AppStores & Other Links

Install from the command line

brew install povray

Be careful what you paste into a terminal. Check what a command installs before running it.

What is POV-Ray?

The Persistence of Vision Raytracer is a high-quality, totally free tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. It is available in official versions for Windows, Mac OS/Mac OS X and i86 Linux. The source code is available for those wanting to do their own ports.