Hi everyone.  David (Kirk) Buck here.  I'm the original author of 
DKBTrace and POV-Ray.

It's now been about 40 years since I wrote DKBTrace.  It seems like 
forever ago, but I can still remember the thrill of generating (very 
slowly) 3D images of scenes I modeled with a text file using software I 
wrote myself.

I check this forum periodically, but mostly I just lurk to be honest and 
check out what people are doing.  I was about 24 years old when I first 
wrote DKBTrace. I'll soon be turning 64 years old and I'm aiming at 
retiring soon.

I've always been interested in spreading the joy of programming and 
using computers in a creative way.  DKBTrace was one of many projects 
I've worked on simply for the joy of coding.  Interestingly, when I 
released DKBTrace, I thought I was done with it and was releasing it to 
allow others to have fun as well.  It seems that the fun has been 
continuing for the past 40 years.

I'm going to commit to checking this newsgroup more frequently for a 
while and responding to posts.  If you have any questions or comments 
I'll try to respond as quickly as I can.

David Buck

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Hi David,

the fun has absolutely been continuing for the last 40 years.
Thank you very much.

Cheers
Ton

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Hi David,
A quick note of gratitude: I started with POV-Ray in '96 and still pop into this
forum occasionally. It means a lot that the original author is still around.

Cheers,

B. Gimeno

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Thank you.  I never thought 40 years ago that the little raytracer I 
wrote would grow into the masterpiece that is modern-day POV-Ray.  It's 
been fun watching it grow over the years.

David Buck

On 2026-03-26 11:02 p.m., Ton wrote:
> Hi David,
> 
> the fun has absolutely been continuing for the last 40 years.
> Thank you very much.
> 
> Cheers
> Ton
> 
> 
>

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Thanks.  It was literally my pleasure.

DKBTrace was originally developed on an Amiga computer in C.  I did code 
in some ideas from Smalltalk that I learned a few years earlier (I 
learned Smalltalk in 1984).  By 1996, I was working full-time in 
Smalltalk and have been primarily using Smalltalk for my entire 
programming career.

How many people even know what Smalltalk is these days?  Not many.

David Buck

On 2026-03-27 1:33 a.m., B. Gimeno wrote:
> Hi David,
> A quick note of gratitude: I started with POV-Ray in '96 and still pop into this
> forum occasionally. It means a lot that the original author is still around.
> Thanks for the joy of coding — and happy early retirement!
> Cheers,
> 
> B. Gimeno
> 
> 
>

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David Buck <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:
>
> How many people even know what Smalltalk is these days?  Not many.
>

I remember something with a Dolphin? And was one of the first versions of
SuperCollider not written in SmallTalk. Their current DSL still resembles it.
Honestly, I always get lost in it, as in most OOP, it feels so fragmented, or my
old brain is :)

ingo

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On 2026-03-27 8:24 a.m., ingo wrote:
> David Buck <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:
>>
>> How many people even know what Smalltalk is these days?  Not many.
>>
> 
> I remember something with a Dolphin? And was one of the first versions of
> SuperCollider not written in SmallTalk. Their current DSL still resembles it.
> Honestly, I always get lost in it, as in most OOP, it feels so fragmented, or my
> old brain is :)
> 
> ingo
> 

Yes, Dolphin was a version of Smalltalk - actually a pretty nice one. 
It's too bad they couldn't make a commercial success of it.

David

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I met David Buck on Facebook group, and I'm happy to see him here too.
I'm very grateful to him.
I've been on POV-ray almost every day since the DKB days.
I still have a booklet that was published in Italy around that time,
attached to a PC magazine, with the DKB disk.

one of the first tests of my DXF to DKB parser

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David Buck <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:
> Hi everyone.  David (Kirk) Buck here.  I'm the original author of
> DKBTrace and POV-Ray.

Hello again, David.
The above sounds like the introduction to an interview video.  :)

> I've always been interested in spreading the joy of programming and
> using computers in a creative way.  DKBTrace was one of many projects
> I've worked on simply for the joy of coding.

What did you learn while writing DKBTrace, and what sorts of math or programming
methods did you realize were truly central to the heart of what made DKBTrace
work?

What do you think contributed most to the enduring success of POV-Ray?
What are some of the features that were added that you like the most?
Were there things that you've always wanted to implement, but never did?
Do you have friends and colleagues in the programming world that use POV-Ray?
What do you think are the features or attributes of POV-Ray that make it the
most useful for certain tasks?
What are some key features that you think POV-Ray would benefit from the most?

Do you ever run across images, and instantly recognize that they were rendered
with POV-Ray?

- Bill "Bald Eagle" Walker

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On 2026-03-27 8:55 a.m., GioSeregni wrote:
> 
> I met David Buck on Facebook group, and I'm happy to see him here too.
> I'm very grateful to him.
> I've been on POV-ray almost every day since the DKB days.
> I still have a booklet that was published in Italy around that time,
> attached to a PC magazine, with the DKB disk.
> 
> one of the first tests of my DXF to DKB parser
> 


What I've always loved about the DKBTrace / POV-Ray community is that 
they took what they had and ran with it to create converters and 
generators that helped reduce the effort required to create models and 
scenes.  There are lots of tools that generate spirals, trees, leaves, 
blades of grass, and tons more.  As I said, I released it to allow 
others to have fun with it as well and I'm delighted to see how that 
turned out.

David

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