"Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote in message 
news:486a462c$1@news.povray.org...
> I'd like to set up my home computer such that, by using minimal software* 
> on another system, I can send my home computer an SDL file, have it 
> render, and retrieve the resulting image.
>
> I'm running Windows XP Pro at home.
>
> Does anyone have a suggestion for how to do this?
>
> *Minimal software means nothing that isn't included on almost every 
> comptuer out there.  I won't be able to install anything on the remote 
> systems - typically shared systems at the library or work.  Ideally, 
> nothing more than a web browser and/or FTP client, *possibly* a terminal 
> shell (I don't know if it'll be available or not).
>
> ...Chambers

I didn't try doing this, but I'm not aware of any insurmountable issues, so 
long as you have a machine that can be connected to from elsewhere (e.g. one 
with a fixed IP address), otherwise it gets trickier. It might take a bit of 
work if it has to be tidy and resilient, but if it's just for casual use 
then I don't think it should be too difficult.

If you leave POV-Ray running on your home machine and you have 'keep single 
instance' selected then you can render a scene by calling pvengine.exe from 
a DOS prompt (pvengine.exe /render "Full file path") without the splash 
screen popping up each time. There's also a warning message where you'll 
need to select "don't tell me this again", otherwise it'll wait for user 
input. The POV-Ray application will pop to the front and could therefore be 
a little irritating for anyone using the home machine at the time, but it 
should render ok. If you don't leave POV-Ray running I think it'll take a 
few seconds more because it displays the splash screen for about 5 seconds 
on launch.

Option 1: You could have a simple OS script running continuously to monitor 
a directory for new scene files and render them. By default the image would 
be written back into the same directory. There are lots of ways to put the 
file into the directory from a remote machine and get the image back from 
that directory. For example, you could run an FTP server on your machine, 
exposing just that one directory.

Option 2: You could write something similar using an HTTP server that would 
allow you to upload a file through a form using a standard Web browser and 
use the browser to view the resulting image. If you use an HTTP server you'd 
need a server script (e.g. in PHP) but it should be able to render the file 
the moment it is uploaded rather than having to monitor the directory for 
new files. You should also be able to pass in some command line options in 
case you want to do animation or adjust the image size.

Regards,
Chris B.

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