Category : Printer + Display Graphics
Archive   : PV050DOC.ZIP
Filename : HISTORY.DOC

Persistence of Vision Raytracer Version History
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PV-Ray was originally DKBTrace Ver. 2.12 written by David Buck. He
donated the rights to his source code so the PV-Team could enhance this
raytracer as a group project similar to Fractint. The source code for
PV-Ray will always be freely distributable subject to the restrictions
in the header files. Thanks David, for your generous gift!

Version 0.02 BETA Release 7/29/91 (as STAR-Light)
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First version is still basically DKBTrace 2.12 with a few new features.

- Materials mapping added by Drew Wells.(see matmap.dat)
- ONION & LEOPARD textures added by Scott Taylor.
- Time to trace display added by Bill Pulver.
- Grayscale display (+g) for IBM-PC's added by Scott Taylor.
- Small wood texture bug fixed to create true cylinders.
- Verbose now displays more info including file being traced.
- Option +vO added to enable old-style terse verbose.
- Texture.c broken into smaller modules.
- PAINTED1, 2, & 3 added for developers.
- BUMPY1, 2, & 3 added for developers.

PvRay Version 0.5 BETA Release 9/07/91
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Many more changes this time around, including...

- Many enhancements from Alexander Enzmann
- Bezier bicubic subpatches
- Ploynomial surfaces
- New mapping types (sphere, etc.)
- Sturmian sequences
- Clipping shapes
- (have I forgotten anything??)
- Lots of hard work and enhancements by Aaron Collins
- Height fields by Doug Muir
- Bump Mapping by Doug Muir and Drew Wells
- Interpolation by Girish T. Hagan adapted for mapping by Drew Wells
- # and ; are now ignored.
- case_sensitive keywords and command line option added by Drew Wells
> case_sensitive_yes -- All words checked for exact case. Keywords must be
in upper case. (*Old DKB Style*)
> case_sensitive_no -- Case is ignored for all words.
> case_sensitive_opt -- DEFAULT - All words checked for exact case except
keywords. Keywords will be accepted in upper and/or
lower case.
> command line -- /ty = yes, /tn = no, /to = opt
- cnvdat.c to convert old dat files included with pvsrc.
- C++ style commenting - // ignore to end of line.
and /* ignore between braces */ nesting not allowed.
- New default style verbose trace info (+v1)
- Old-new style verbose (+v0)
- Verbose trace info outputs to stderr so that stats can be redirected to
file.
- New stats display outputs to stdout for better redirection.
- New lighting routines by David Buck.
- The declared colors Red, Green, and Blue in colors.dat are now CRed, CBlue,
CGreen.
- The declared quadric Sphere in shapes.dat is now QSphere.
- Textures.dat has been cleaned up and commented.