#OpenSourcegraphics

2025-12-08
FOSS Advent Calendar - Door 9: 3D Rendering with POV-Ray

Today we explore POV-Ray, a powerful FOSS tool for creating stunning 3D graphics.

POV-Ray stands for Persistence of Vision Raytracer. It allows you to describe complex 3D scenes in a text-based scene description language and render them into high-quality images. You can create anything from simple geometric shapes to intricate molecular structures or artistic compositions.

It’s perfect for nerds, FOSS enthusiasts, or anyone who wants to combine programming and art to produce beautiful visuals. POV-Ray works entirely via the command line, so you can automate renders, tweak parameters, and experiment endlessly with light, textures, and camera angles.

Pro tip: try rendering a molecule, a futuristic scene, or a holiday-themed object in 4K resolution, the results are mesmerizing!

For this example, I have rendered the HIV Protease Inhibitor from the RCSB PDB entry 1HVR (Rational design of potent, bioavailable, nonpeptide cyclic ureas as HIV protease inhibitors).

Link: https://github.com/POV-Ray/povray

Which 3D scene would you love to bring to life with POV-Ray?

#FOSS #OpenSource #Linux #CLI #Terminal #POVRay #3DRendering #RayTracing #Graphics #NerdContent #AdventCalendar #OpenTools #FOSSAdvent #CommandLine #CreativeCoding #DigitalArt #TechNerds #OpenSourceGraphics #Fediverse #Adventkalender #ProteinVisualization #Chemistry #StructuralBiology #MolecularVisualization #HIVProteaseInhibitor #ScienceArt #adventskalender
2024-04-08

So it's finally happened. I'm tired of ☠️-ing Adobe software. With its shift to AI and other dubious practices I'm finally switching to #FOSS alternatives.
For photoshop I'm using #Krita; Illustrator, #Inkscape, tho now I'm looking for an indesign alternative. So far #Scribus seems the most popular. And I might have to get a free trial of indesign to export my existing books into XML format 🙃
Anyone know any other alternatives?
#OpenSource #software #windows #askmastodon #opensourcegraphics

DuckyVanDuckduckheschy
2024-03-18

Has anyone tried to play some 3D Games using Proton on Nouveau since NVK became good?

Last time I tried to use Nouveau, my 3D Games just told me that my Graphics Card is not Capable of (I forgot what it was). But with the proprietary drivers it works. Has Nouveau improved due to NVK yet, or do I still have to wait?

Next thing TUXEDO OS users get right away from the repositories is Mesa 3D's latest stable version 22.2.3.

Here's the changelog: docs.mesa3d.org/relnotes/22.2.

#OpenGL #Vulkan #OpenSourceGraphics

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