KIO-POV is a KDE IO-Slave that provides an interface to POV-Ray.

For those who do not know about KDE - KIO-Slaves are the mechanism KDE 
programs use to access files.  Using network KIO-Slaves you can for 
example directly edit a file on an ftp server just like you do with a 
local file.  Same for accessing a file in a zip archive.  KIO-POV does 
the same for POV-Ray and rendering of scenes, for example opening:

pov:/usr/local/share/povray-3.6/scenes/advanced/biscuit.pov?render

will render that scene and return the PNG image.  Other options allow 
you to view the render log, scene file information and information about 
the POV-Ray configuration.  MegaPOV is supported as well.  A caching 
mechanism is implemented so accessing the same render twice will not 
render the scene again.

To build KIO-POV you need the development files of KDE (any relatively 
new KDE version should work).  If you install KDE via your distribution 
package management this means you need the -devel packages, if you build 
KDE from source you don't need anything.

Source package and a screenshot of the scene info mode can be found on:

http://www.imagico.de/kiopov/

Feedback if it works and is useful would be great.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 03 May. 2005 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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> pov:/usr/local/share/povray-3.6/scenes/advanced/biscuit.pov?render

	Cool!
	That should help people setting online rendering engines I presume.

> http://www.imagico.de/kiopov/

	Yoy and you also got a brand-new url  :-p

	- NC

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Nicolas Calimet wrote:
>> pov:/usr/local/share/povray-3.6/scenes/advanced/biscuit.pov?render
> 
> 
>     Cool!
>     That should help people setting online rendering engines I presume.

Actually no - i don't think this is of any help in this concern.  You 
could of course set up a webserver to directly pass a HTTP request to 
KIO-POV and return the result but that's not really useful.

>> http://www.imagico.de/kiopov/
> 
> 
>     Yoy and you also got a brand-new url  :-p

Not brand new - i have this for more than a year. :-)

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 03 May. 2005 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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Hi Christoph!

I tried kiopov yesterday. Installation went smooth once I pointed the
configure script to the right KDE version (using 3.3 here). Here are my
first impressions:

- Is there a way to show the info mode when clicking on a file? It works
when I use a "pov:/" URL in the konqueror bar, but I'd like it to open
automagically if I click on a file, or say, via an entry in the context
menu. I couldn't find kiopov in the list of installed extensions, should
it be there?

- The README file is empty over here and the INSTALL file seems to be a
standard one from configure or make. It would have been nice to read
some kiopov specific stuff :)

- The thing which definitely not works with my setup here is: I got
Mozilla set up as default browser. Everytime I click on a link in a
kiopov info page (which is shown in Konqueror), the link target is saved
in a cache and Mozilla is called. But Mozilla just complains about XML
errors in the cached page. Is there a way to follow the links in
Konqueror? This might not be a kiopov problem, it's the same with the
whole KDE help etc. over here :(

- When trying to fix the issue above, I managed to set things up in a
way that when I clicked on the MegaPOV link in kiopov, Konqueror after
Konqueror was fired up, pointing at the MegaPOV site. Could only start
it by restarting KDE :( The error could be reproduced, but it's gone now oO

- This tool would be even more useful if it'd display the rendered image
on the info page (when there's a rendered image). Perhaps shrink big
images to fit. Because that's often the most interesting question when
regarding a pov file: What does the render look like? And yes, I'm lazy
and clicking on the "Show rendered image" link is too much work :)


HTH,
Florian
-- 
camera{look_at-y*10location<8,-3,-8>*10}#local a=0;#while(a<999)sphere{
#local _=.01*a-4.99;#local p=a*.01-5;#local c=.01*a-4.995;<sin(p*pi)*5p
*10pow(p,5)*.01>sin(c*c*c*.1)+1pigment{rgb 3}}#local a=a+1;#end
/******** http://www.torfbold.com ******** http://www.imp.org ********/

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Florian Brucker wrote:
> Hi Christoph!
> 
> I tried kiopov yesterday. Installation went smooth once I pointed the
> configure script to the right KDE version (using 3.3 here). Here are my
> first impressions:

Thanks for testing!

> - Is there a way to show the info mode when clicking on a file? It works
> when I use a "pov:/" URL in the konqueror bar, but I'd like it to open
> automagically if I click on a file, or say, via an entry in the context
> menu. I couldn't find kiopov in the list of installed extensions, should
> it be there?

I already wondered the same but i think no other KIO slave does this so 
i assume there is no way to do this (but it might be worth asking in the 
KDE mailing lists).  Note a KIO slave is not a program opening a file 
that can be embedded in konqueror (that would be a kpart) but a module 
that - given an URL (which does not necessarily refer to a real file) 
returns certain data (which is processed/displayed by a different program).

Adding a new context menu entry that opens the info page (or renders the 
scene) in a *new* konqueror windows/tab should be easy (via kfmclient) 
but not sure if it is also possible to reuse the current one for this.

> - The README file is empty over here and the INSTALL file seems to be a
> standard one from configure or make. It would have been nice to read
> some kiopov specific stuff :)

try help:/kiopov/

> - The thing which definitely not works with my setup here is: I got
> Mozilla set up as default browser. Everytime I click on a link in a
> kiopov info page (which is shown in Konqueror), the link target is saved
> in a cache and Mozilla is called. But Mozilla just complains about XML
> errors in the cached page. Is there a way to follow the links in
> Konqueror? This might not be a kiopov problem, it's the same with the
> whole KDE help etc. over here :(

You probably just need to configure your file associations differently - 
but this will lead to clicking on a HTML file in konqueror opening the 
file in konqueror as well (which might not be what you want if you have 
previously configured mozilla to be used for that).

> - This tool would be even more useful if it'd display the rendered image
> on the info page (when there's a rendered image). Perhaps shrink big
> images to fit.

The problem about this is that there are two possibilities:

- shrink the image only in display which will result in long loading 
times and high memory use for large images.
- always generate an additional 'thumbnail' after rendering for this 
(which will result slower operation of the render mode).

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 03 May. 2005 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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Thanks for filling me in on the difference between a KIO slave and a
KPart. Never been much into KDE internals :)

A quick hack for showing the info page when clicking on a file is to
create a script:

#/bin/bash
konqueror pov:$1

And simply tell Konqueror to use it when opening *.pov files. It will
open in a new window, though, as I have not found any information about
remote commands like the ones Mozilla features (All KDE help files seem
to be written for the complete dummies, leaving out all the interesting
stuff oO).


[Empty README]
> try help:/kiopov/
Okay, perhaps that could go into the README ;)


[Pages open in Mozilla]
Setting Konqueror as the default app for html-files fixed it. Not sure
if I like it, though. Will have to dig into this some more.


[Image display]
> The problem about this is that there are two possibilities:
> - shrink the image only in display which will result in long loading 
> times and high memory use for large images.
> - always generate an additional 'thumbnail' after rendering for this 
> (which will result slower operation of the render mode).
The thumbnail would not have to be that big. 320x240 would be big
enough. Perhaps let the user decide: Give a width and height, every
image below these will displayed as is, all others will get thumbnails
created with these dimensions. You could always add an option to disable
displaying images alltogether if someone wants that.
Having the render stats displayed inline would be cool, too, but I can
understand that that would perhaps clutter the info window a bit...


Another small thing I just mentioned is that the images botton_left.png
and top_left.png are not shown.


One more feature request: Why does kiopov only display some of the
include files as links? First I thought only standard ones would be
displayed as links, but functions.inc is not displayed as link in the
info page of math.inc. It would be nice to have all include files as
links. Searching the library paths given in the default POV ini should
turn up most of them...


Now that I got it working with a single click, I really like this
software. Keep it up!

Florian
-- 
camera{look_at-y*10location<8,-3,-8>*10}#local a=0;#while(a<999)sphere{
#local _=.01*a-4.99;#local p=a*.01-5;#local c=.01*a-4.995;<sin(p*pi)*5p
*10pow(p,5)*.01>sin(c*c*c*.1)+1pigment{rgb 3}}#local a=a+1;#end
/******** http://www.torfbold.com ******** http://www.imp.org ********/

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Florian Brucker wrote:
> 
> #/bin/bash
> konqueror pov:$1
> 
> And simply tell Konqueror to use it when opening *.pov files. It will
> open in a new window, though, as I have not found any information about
> remote commands like the ones Mozilla features (All KDE help files seem
> to be written for the complete dummies, leaving out all the interesting
> stuff oO).

You can remote control konqueror quite well:

http://developer.kde.org/documentation/tutorials/automation/index.html

but the problem here is to determine which instance of konqueror you 
want to use - if there are 20 windows open that's not so easy...

> 
> [Empty README]
> 
>>try help:/kiopov/
> 
> Okay, perhaps that could go into the README ;)

Well - putting the complete docs into the readme does not make that much 
sense...

Writing a short README would of course be a good idea.

> The thumbnail would not have to be that big. 320x240 would be big
> enough. Perhaps let the user decide: Give a width and height, every
> image below these will displayed as is, all others will get thumbnails
> created with these dimensions. You could always add an option to disable
> displaying images alltogether if someone wants that.

But when should the thumbnail be created?  Doing so for a large image 
can take some time - esp. if the image is stored on a volume with slow 
access.  Would you rather wait longer after the render or when calling 
the info mode?

> Another small thing I just mentioned is that the images botton_left.png
> and top_left.png are not shown.

Might be that those only work in KDE 3.4.

> One more feature request: Why does kiopov only display some of the
> include files as links? First I thought only standard ones would be
> displayed as links, but functions.inc is not displayed as link in the
> info page of math.inc. It would be nice to have all include files as
> links. Searching the library paths given in the default POV ini should
> turn up most of them...

The library path settings are determined from a POV-Ray test run.  The 
problem here is that include files in the same directory are not linked 
- that should be changed of course.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 03 May. 2005 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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Christoph Hormann wrote:
> 
> The library path settings are determined from a POV-Ray test run.  The 
> problem here is that include files in the same directory are not linked 
> - that should be changed of course.

in fact it is a one-line-patch to add this: file pov.cpp, add:

else Found=true;

after line 287.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 03 May. 2005 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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> You can remote control konqueror quite well:
> http://developer.kde.org/documentation/tutorials/automation/index.html
Thanks, I'll check into that.


>> [Empty README]
>> 
>>>try help:/kiopov/
>> 
>> Okay, perhaps that could go into the README ;)
> 
> Well - putting the complete docs into the readme does not make that much 
> sense...
> 
I only suggested to put the link into the REAMDE :)


[Thumbnails]
> But when should the thumbnail be created?  Doing so for a large image 
> can take some time - esp. if the image is stored on a volume with slow 
> access.  Would you rather wait longer after the render or when calling 
> the info mode?
Would it be possible to do it in the background? And do you really think
it would take such a long time? If it's too long for you, you could add
another option, called sth. like "max_thumbnail_dimension". For images
bigger than that, no thumbnails would be created.


[Missing images]
>> Another small thing I just mentioned is that the images botton_left.png
>> and top_left.png are not shown.
> 
> Might be that those only work in KDE 3.4.
Just checked some other 3.3 KDE help files. They don't display anything
like that. I guess I have no problem living with these images missing ;)


[Missing links]
> The library path settings are determined from a POV-Ray test run.  The 
> problem here is that include files in the same directory are not linked 
> - that should be changed of course.
Your one-line patch fixes that. Thanks!


The scene description field in your info page is a nice thing, too. I
thought about writing something like JavaDoc for POV-Ray scenes (nothing
too complicated, though).


Florian
-- 
camera{look_at-y*10location<8,-3,-8>*10}#local a=0;#while(a<999)sphere{
#local _=.01*a-4.99;#local p=a*.01-5;#local c=.01*a-4.995;<sin(p*pi)*5p
*10pow(p,5)*.01>sin(c*c*c*.1)+1pigment{rgb 3}}#local a=a+1;#end
/******** http://www.torfbold.com ******** http://www.imp.org ********/

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Florian Brucker wrote:
> 
> I only suggested to put the link into the REAMDE :)
> 

:-)

> 
> Would it be possible to do it in the background? And do you really think
> it would take such a long time? If it's too long for you, you could add
> another option, called sth. like "max_thumbnail_dimension". For images
> bigger than that, no thumbnails would be created.

In background - tricky but that would be an interesting feature.

> 
> Just checked some other 3.3 KDE help files. They don't display anything
> like that. I guess I have no problem living with these images missing ;)

You can always customize the template for the info pages...

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 03 May. 2005 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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