Hi.

I've been running povray on a linux cluster very successfully for awhile,
but for reasons too long to go into, I need to port to our Mac cluster
immediately.  Its 84 dual processor powerpc macs running OS X.

I'm on a very time critical deadline and if I dont get this working, I'm
sunk.

I downloaded povray for mac.  un-stuffed-it on a stand alone mac.  This
created a Povray-3.6.img file and a POV-Ray 3.6 folder with the
distribution in it.  I copied the distribution folder to my thumbdrive.
Put it on my Windows PC, from which I WinSCP'd it to the mac cluster.

My interface to the mac cluster is thru an xterm window on my SGI, using a
tcsh shell. (thus all the spaces in the file names are going to cause me to
open a vein soon >:-0 )

So I try to run the executable (who's permissions were not set at first, so
I set them for rwx). and I get:

POV-RAY Mac 3.6: POV-Ray Mac 3.6: cannot execute binary file


What is my problem?  I have little to no experience with macs, and
unfortunately have no time to incur a learning curve at this point.  Did
the binary format get mangled when bouncing it off my Windows PC?

Should I take the .sit file and unpack it directly on the cluster? I didnt
know how to do that, which is why I used the stuff-it on the stand alone
mac with the mac GUI. (If so, I'm still gonna have to bounce the .sit off
my Windows PC)

I read thru some of the other posts here, and I dont even know what Rosetta
is, or what the issues with an emulator, or intel-mac, etc. are.

I would be greatly appreciative is somebody could help me out, hopefully its
something simple to a mac user, but that I'm oblivious to.

Thanks in advance.

Post a reply to this message

space_cadet wrote:
> What is my problem?

POV-Ray for Mac is *not* a command-line program and hence it won't run when 
started from a terminal. If you want a command-line version, you need to get 
the Unix sources and compile them on Mac OS X (after installing the 
developer tools, which Apple supplied with every copy of Mac OS X).

	Thorsten

Post a reply to this message

Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
> space_cadet wrote:
> > What is my problem?
>
> POV-Ray for Mac is *not* a command-line program and hence it won't run when
> started from a terminal. If you want a command-line version, you need to get
> the Unix sources and compile them on Mac OS X (after installing the
> developer tools, which Apple supplied with every copy of Mac OS X).
>
>  Thorsten

Thank you.  You know that occurred to me last night as I contemplated the
ceiling above my bed.  I realized I was trying to run a highly GUI'd
program with no place for the GUI, neither the G nor the I, just the U. :)

I'll try to home build.  Hopefully it will go as smoothly as my home build
of povray on our 64-bit titanium cluster.

Fortunately, the problems with our Linux cluster got resolved, so I'm back
in business anyway. But it will be great to have a whole 'nother cluster to
use in the future.

thanks again.

Post a reply to this message

I just successfully built a command line version of povray on our mac
cluster.

I did this on our 64-bit linux itantium cluster a few months ago, and
remarked on here about how utterly hassle free and robust the build scripts
are.  I gotta echo that again. I have NEVER encountered such easy to use 3rd
party build scripts.

I've attempted to build many different packages from sources that claim
'works right out of the box' only to end up actually modifying THEIR source
code (!!) and messing with lib versions, and lord knows what else. Thats
where my fear of home builds came from.

But this package is just a dream. The verbose during building is beyond
thorough. It covers its a$$ around every corner. There's just no room for
improvement here. Hats off to those who are responsible.

So anyone who might be considering a home build, be not afraid. Be VERY not
afraid. :-)

Post a reply to this message

> There's just no room for
> improvement here.

	Well, in fact there is (as always).  See for example:

http://pov4grasp.free.fr/patches/3.6/#config

	:-)

	- NC

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