Adam wrote:
> 
>    What kind of people use Povray? I keep hearing about this "certain
> niche," but more specifically... I don't see many female users for
> instance.

Users are hobbyists, mainly. But there are many ways to use POV, and many kinds
of users: programmers, artists, engineers, mathematicians etc. While many users
participate in these newsgroups, many more do not. Three of my friends (one of
them female) use POV fairly frequently. I have of course told them about the
newsgroups, but they still prefer bothering me over the phone.

> Also, the program doesn't seem to be well suited for
> Engineering, drafting, or even designing real-life objects.

This cannot be stressed enough: the task of POV is to render a picutre. Those
things you describe are jobs for a modelling program like Rhino, who create the
input for renderers like POV.

>    So what does that leave us with? Artists who want total control over
> the scene? Computer programmers who simply want to challenge themselves?

I'd say POV works best for someone who has both artistic talent and programming
skill. The programmatic constructs POV can produce are not possible with most
other 3D packages.

-- 
Margus Ramst

Personal e-mail: mar### [at] peakeduee
TAG (Team Assistance Group) e-mail: mar### [at] tagpovrayorg

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Adam wrote:
> 
>    Then, let me put it this way. Does anyone make good money using Povray.

How much money is good? I've done some POV stuff for paying customers. Brochure
covers, a few presentational videos, that sort of thing. Not nearly enough to
make a living. The customer is impressed with sample images - until we come to
deadlines. Then suddenly Archicad renders are good again!

-- 
Margus Ramst

Personal e-mail: mar### [at] peakeduee
TAG (Team Assistance Group) e-mail: mar### [at] tagpovrayorg

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Dear Adam and Folks,

Adam wrote:
>    What kind of people use Povray?...
[snip]

This is the most interesting, non-techical POV question in a long time.

I consider myself to be an artist.  I've been drawing with pen-and-ink,
ball points, felt tips, pencils since I was able to hold them.  In high
school I practiced with oils, acrylics, chalks, water paints, etc.  I
would rate myself (IMHO) a B+/A- artist.  But I'm also lazy.  I can
visualize a scene or admire someone else's work and I know I could do
that or better, but quality work requires lots of time.  So my work over
the years has been spotty.  And I'm also poor, I could never afford all
the materials needed.  The free nature of the POV program is a deffinite
plus.

In college I studied programming and discovered various graphics and
drawing programs.  Here was a partial solution to my personal
weaknesses: let the computer do all the detail work, coloring (i.e.
texturing), perspectives, lighting. Then I can concentrate on
composition and content.  POV was a gift from the Gods of Programming:
software that requires detailed planning and organizing and then
produces excellent quality images.

I use POV for fun, for artistic satisfaction, for personal
gratification.  My obsessive/compulsive personality delights in writing
detailed source code with extensive comments, all percisely indented,
aligned, and annotated.  My creative imagination is satisfied by making
visions come to life in almost-perfect realism.  My male need to belong
to a group of like-minded and like-talented people is gratified by being
part of the international POV community.

Thanx for starting this interesting discussion.

Blessings, 
           Brendan

-- 
Michael Brendan Hurley
POV: http://www.geocities.com/mbrendanh/
FAMILY: http://www.saber.net/~mbhcgc/
mbh### [at] sabernet

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>
>   Ooops... I meant that you can, of course :)

Don't worry, I think we figured it out ourselves already.

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I use POV-Ray extensively for visualization (stills and animations) of real
properties (not to be confused with viewing ball and stick models or blob
models) of atomic and molecular systems calculated from Quantum Mechanics
and Statistical Mechanics.

This visualization capability provides detailed, and sometimes unique,
insights into the properties of chemical and physical systems under both
static and dynamic (i.e. chemical reaction, heat transfer, etc) conditions.

Check out the Research portion of my web site at for some examples:

www.kressworks.com

Then, of course, I also use POV-Ray for rendering artistic scenes.  See the
Art section of my site for some examples.

Jim

"Adam" <bel### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:39932178.CDA2C50F@yahoo.com...
>    What kind of people use Povray? I keep hearing about this "certain
> niche," but more specifically... I don't see many female users for
> instance. Also, the program doesn't seem to be well suited for
> Engineering, drafting, or even designing real-life objects. Now, I am
> well aware that the ray tracer is just made to create images, but that's
> the problem. Other programs may offer tension or elasticity analyses, or
> offer  to work with materials with actual physical properties.
>    I haven't heard of any company using POV-ray to design their bikes or
> remote controls, like with Rhino. Povray is too difficult for, say,
> architecture, since walkthroughs are a pain. The features include
> cylinders, not pipes; "clipped_by," not "window." It seems that
> everything you do, has to be done from scratch unless you look for
> include files. Even for graphics, motion picture industries use
> expensive programs like 3D Studio, and others simply use 2D programs
> like Photoshop.
>    So what does that leave us with? Artists who want total control over
> the scene? Computer programmers who simply want to challenge themselves?
> In other words, it seems to me that Povray has few practical
> applications, but is more of a hobby, or even a teaching device for
> understanding higher-level programs.
>

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