# POV-Ray/povray

The Persistence of Vision Raytracer (POV-Ray)

Repository: https://github.com/POV-Ray/povray
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/povray
Homepage: https://www.povray.org/
Language: C++
License: AGPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: pov-ray, 3d-graphics, 3d-rendering, raytracing
Last push: 2025-12-09T13:07:45+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 48/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 56, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4683, "days_push": 267, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1513, forks 301 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:56.198511+00:00)

## What it is
POV-Ray (The Persistence of Vision Raytracer) is a free, high-quality raytracing application for creating photorealistic three-dimensional graphics from scene description files. It is written in C++ and distributed under the AGPL-3.0 license with official binaries for major platforms.

## Use cases
- render photorealistic 3d scenes from text scene files
- create 3d graphics and animations without a gui modeler
- generate procedural 3d artwork using a scene description language
- batch render 3d images from the command line
- learn raytracing and computer graphics techniques

## When to choose
- you want scriptable, deterministic 3d rendering from scene description files
- you need a free, cross-platform raytracer with a long track record
- you prefer procedural scene definition over interactive modeling

## When to avoid
- you need interactive real-time 3d modeling or a gui editor
- you need GPU-accelerated real-time rendering
- you want modern game-engine-style workflows

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: graphics, simulation, cli
- domain: graphics, cross-platform
- platform: windows, cpp
- tags: raytracing, 3d-rendering, scene-description-language, photorealistic-rendering, macos, linux

## Member repositories
- POV-Ray/povray (main) score 48

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:56.198511+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T04:32:14.196436+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/POV-Ray/povray (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:56.198511+00:00, sha 65aed936d71e)
  - homepage: https://www.povray.org/ (fetched 2026-08-29T11:35:53.895941+00:00, sha 60646b30d12f)
  - site_page: https://www.povray.org/documentation (fetched 2026-08-29T11:35:53.905119+00:00, sha b3e6a77e7fc2)
  - site_page: https://wiki.povray.org/content/Knowledgebase:POV-Ray_Questions_and_Tips (fetched 2026-08-29T11:35:53.906910+00:00, sha e80e7450e79c)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.