I have written a tool for POVRay rendering on clusters. The name of the 
tool is JCGrid. Thanks to JCGrid, you can use as many 
Workstations/PCs/Macs as you like for the rendering of a single POVRay 
image.

It doesn't require a any patch for POVRay and it works running POVRay 
like an external command. Any file required for the rendering is 
transferred between the nodes of the grid by JCGrid. Once you have setup 
a JCGrid, it can be used by many user even at the same time. You can 
look at a POVRay JCGrid like a rendering service. Check the demos page 
for some interesting performance comparison.

The homepage is at http://jcgrid.sourceforge.net/
You can download sources and binaries from: 
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=109146

Just to give you a raw idea of the kind of performance results you 
obtain by using JCGrid:

Rendering time (Plants.pov available at http://www.f-lohmueller.de/ 
image 1280x1024 AA enabled)

POVRay
1xAthlon XP 1800+ (BogoMIPS=3014)
Total rendering time = 01:58:29 (184pixel/sec) (1.0 speed-up)
Total Grid BogoMIPS = 3014 (1.0 speed-up)
Total Grid Index = 1.00 speed-up

Grid 1 with JCGrid(128 fragment size)
[1xAthlon XP 1800+ (BogoMIPS=3014)] => Server+Client+1xWorker
Total rendering time = 01:26:07 (253pixel/sec)
Total Grid BogoMIPS = 3014 (1.0 speed-up)
Total Grid Index = 0.89 speed-up

Grid 2 with JCGrid(128 fragment size)
[1xAthlon XP 1800+(BogoMIPS=3014)] => Server+Client+1xWorker
[2xAthlon MP 2800+(BogoMIPS=2x4246)] => 2xWorker
Total rendering time = 00:17:40 (1235pixel/sec)
Total Grid BogoMIPS = 11506 (3.81 speed-up)
Total Grid Index = 4.34 speed-up

Grid 3 with JCGrid(128 fragment size)
[1xAthlon XP 1800+(BogoMIPS=3014)] => Server+Client+1xWorker
[2xAthlon MP 2800+(BogoMIPS=2x4246)] => 2xWorker
[2xAthlon MP 2800+ (BogoMIPS=2x4246)] => 2xWorker
Total rendering time = 00:10:20 (2110pixel/sec)
Total Grid BogoMIPS = 19998 (6.63 speed-up)
Total Grid Index = 7.42 speed-up

Grid 3b with JCGrid(64 fragment size)
[1xAthlon XP 1800+(BogoMIPS=3014)] => Server+Client+1xWorker
[2xAthlon MP 2800+(BogoMIPS=2x4246)] => 2xWorker
[2xAthlon MP 2800+ (BogoMIPS=2x4246)] => 2xWorker
Total rendering time = 00:11:13 (1946pixel/sec)
Total Grid BogoMIPS = 19998 (6.63 speed-up)
Total Grid Index = 6.85 speed-up

NOTE: JCGrid is in a very early stage of the development so be patience 
if the documentation is incomplete or if the tool is untested (any help 
is wellcome).

David Bucciarelli
Pisa
Italy

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