Hi folks.

First, it has been about three or four years since dabbling with POV. Life has a
way of getting busy! Anyway, I am trying to get back to rendering things and was
wondering if there is a standalone, portable version of POV that I could put on
a flash drive. I tend to bounce between computers at home and cannot install POV
al each of them (though I can run *.exe files...).

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Paul

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"pdjones2112" <pau### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Hi folks.
>
> First, it has been about three or four years since dabbling with POV. Life has a
> way of getting busy! Anyway, I am trying to get back to rendering things and was
> wondering if there is a standalone, portable version of POV that I could put on
> a flash drive. I tend to bounce between computers at home and cannot install POV
> al each of them (though I can run *.exe files...).
>
> Any help would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Paul

Portable POV-Ray is a very good idea, I am also interested!

Post a reply to this message

"pdjones2112" <pau### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Hi folks.
>
> First, it has been about three or four years since dabbling with POV. Life has a
> way of getting busy! Anyway, I am trying to get back to rendering things and was
> wondering if there is a standalone, portable version of POV that I could put on
> a flash drive. I tend to bounce between computers at home and cannot install POV
> al each of them (though I can run *.exe files...).
>
> Any help would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Paul


It sounds like you're talking about POV-Win.  I think you can do this currently,
almost, or awkwardly at least.  What version of POV-Ray do you want to use?

I tried this:  If you copy the directory structure of an installed copy of v3.62
to a flash drive, and then run the executable on a different machine, it will
run.   However, first it will complain about the registry, the availability of
include files and it will create a POV-Ray directory in My Documents. (Earlier
versions like 3.61 shouldn't create that directory.) If you store a copy of the
files that are supposed to be in the My Documents\POV-Ray directory on your
flash drive, and copy them over(and either remove them or leave them when you're
done)*, you now have a not-exactly-hassle-free portable POV-Ray.  I tried this
up to the point before making sure all the library paths were correct in
povray.ini.

*I wouldn't put your scenes in this directory.

Charles

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>
> It sounds like you're talking about POV-Win.

Sorry, yep the windows version. I would love to use the latest and greatest
release.

I was thinking that maybe there might be a way to configure the installation of
POV-Win such that you could specify a completely "local" installation. That is
to say, make pov run and store all files from a specified location (nothing is
done in any other folder/location).

This is well beyond my skill level though... :-)


paul

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pdjones2112 schrieb:

> I was thinking that maybe there might be a way to configure the installation of
> POV-Win such that you could specify a completely "local" installation. That is
> to say, make pov run and store all files from a specified location (nothing is
> done in any other folder/location).

Actually it shouldn't be too difficult:

- The POV-Ray binary can be "installed" /anywhere/, even on a memory stick.

- You need to set up a few registry keys in HKCU\Software\POV-Ray, one 
of which will point to the "installation" directory.

- As of POV-Ray 3.6.2 / 3.7.0, the sample, include and config files must 
be copied to a directory named "POV-Ray/v3.6" or "POV-Ray/v3.7" in the 
user's "My Documents" directory. (Unfortunately this can't be configured 
with a registry key.)


It should be possible to write a batch file that copies all of POV-Ray's 
files into the "POV-Ray/v3.x" directory in the user's "My Documents" 
directory (including binaries), then creates the registry keys by 
generating a registry patch file and have it imported using "regedit /s 
MyRegistryPatch.reg".

Post a reply to this message

"pdjones2112" <pau### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> >
> > It sounds like you're talking about POV-Win.
>
> Sorry, yep the windows version. I would love to use the latest and greatest
> release.

Yeah... I noticed which newsgroup you were posting in only after my reply. :)  I
really haven't done more than try what I mentioned.

>
> I was thinking that maybe there might be a way to configure the installation of
> POV-Win such that you could specify a completely "local" installation. That is
> to say, make pov run and store all files from a specified location (nothing is
> done in any other folder/location).
>

I agree, that sounds like it'd be a useful thing.

Charles

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clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:

> Actually it shouldn't be too difficult:
>
> - The POV-Ray binary can be "installed" /anywhere/, even on a memory stick.
>
> - You need to set up a few registry keys in HKCU\Software\POV-Ray, one
> of which will point to the "installation" directory.


I'm starting to wonder why POV-Ray uses the registry at all. (Store more in
pvengine.ini) Am I remembering correctly that there was some discussion of this
sometime in the recent past?

Charles

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"Charles C" <nomail@nomail> wrote:

> I'm starting to wonder why POV-Ray uses the registry at all. (Store more in
> pvengine.ini) Am I remembering correctly that there was some discussion of this
> sometime in the recent past?
>
> Charles

Ahh:
http://news.povray.org/povray.windows/thread/%3C47c08fb8$1@news.povray.org%3E/

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Charles C schrieb:

> I'm starting to wonder why POV-Ray uses the registry at all. (Store more in
> pvengine.ini) Am I remembering correctly that there was some discussion of this
> sometime in the recent past?

 From what I see, the registry is used for all the stuff closely related 
to CodeMax (the syntax-highlighting editor control used by POV-Ray for 
Windows), while the pvengine.ini is used for everything else that's 
specific to the Windows platform.

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clipka schrieb:

>  From what I see, the registry is used for all the stuff closely related 
> to CodeMax (the syntax-highlighting editor control used by POV-Ray for 
> Windows), while the pvengine.ini is used for everything else that's 
> specific to the Windows platform.

... and the beta timeout mechanism data resides in the registry, too, 
but as that'll appear in the official release I wouldn't count it.

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