POV-Ray Capable Modelers
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| Modelers whose output can be adapted for use in POV-Ray range from small apps which tend to be specialized to creating one POV object type to commercial programs which can output directly to POV-Ray readable format or whose DXF output can be converted to POV triangle meshes. Specialized modelers are listed first followed by more general purpose modelers. All of these run on Macintosh. Several of them are available for other platforms. I've noted this where it applies. |
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BlobSculptor
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Blob Sculptor is a Mac port of an MS-DOS program for graphically creating blob objects. Blob Sculptor uses the usual 3D program convention of a 4-paned window with top, front and side orthographic views and an isometric view. It also has a QuickDraw 3D enhanced preview. While it allows uniform scaling of individual components, in my opinion, the main weakness of the program is not allowing non-uniform scaling of components. Blob Sculptor exports in several file format including POV-Ray scene language, DXF and 3DMF. Blob Sculptor is a nice little modeler that most POV-Ray users will find useful. The original MS-DOS version of Blob Sculptor as well as a Windows versin by Steve Anger can be found here.
Blob Sculptor is a Classic Mac application and the current version of Blob Sculptor for Mac is 1.2 |
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Jam |
Jam is another application for creating POV-Ray blob objects. While the interface is not as polished as Blob Sculptor's, Jam boasts a couple of features that Blob Sculptor lacks. In addition to spherical blobs Jam supports cylindrical blobs. Jam also allows you to scale components non-uniformly. Jam outputs a POV-Ray scene language file. Jam is at an early stage of development and has not been updated in some time. Its author, Joe Strout prioritizes his work according to user feedback, so check out Jam and email Joe if you want to see it impoved!
Jam is a Classic Mac application and the current version is 0.4 |
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3D-LParser |
There used to be a couple of Mac versions of Lauren Lapre's L-system generator. This is the only one still available that I'm aware of. It was ported by David H. Goeb. It uses Quickdraw 3D for previews and can also generate models in 3DMF format. David's website is no longer up, however you can download his version of Lparser at the Chaos Hypertextbook website, which is a great resource istself for Mac fractal related software. You have to scroll down a ways on the page to fine 3D-Lparser.
3D-Lparser is a Classic Mac application and the current version is update III version 3.01 |
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Art of Illusion |
Art of Illusion is an open-source 3D modeler/renderer written in Java. It will run on any computer with a Java Virtual Machine that is compatible with JDK 1.1 or later. Art of Illusion (AOI) has a nice feature set including triangular meshes, bezier meshes, bones and skeletons for animation, a very complete procedural texture editor and a lot more! A POV-Ray export filter has been written for AOI and it does a good job of writing your model or entire scene to POV-Ray syntax.
Art of Illusion is free. In my experience, it runs well on Macs in both OS 9 and OS X. The current version is 1.7 |
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Wings 3d |
Wings 3d is a modeler which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and can be compiled for other Unix platforms. It i s a very capable modeler although it was designed for use with a 3-button mouse and makes extensive use of all three buttons in its interface requiring some adjustments by Mac users. Wings 3d exports to POV-Ray 3.5 by means of a plug-in written by a 3rd party and available at the author's website.
The Mac version of Wings 3d runs on OS X only. It's freeware and the current version is 0.98.20c |
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Blender |
Very full-featured cross-platform modeling/animation/rendering program which exports to several formats and renderers including POV-Ray. Available for Mac OS X, Windows 95 to XP, Linux i86, Linux PPC, Free BSD, SGI Irix and Sun Solaris.
Blender for Mac requires OS X and the current version is 2.32 |
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Mondfarilo
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Mondifarilo was an ambitious project to build a platform-independent POV-Ray interactive modeler in Java as well as a Mac PPC-native exectutable. The website and application are still available for download but it hasn't been updated in years. Mondifarilo was very nice as far as its development went, and for many years it was one of the best and only choices for visually modeling for POV-Ray on the Mac. It's capabilities have been far surpassed with cross-platform programs like Art of Illusion or Wings 3D today, but, on the Mac, these also only run on OS X, so if you're still using OS 9 Mondifarilo can still be useful.
Modifarilo is downloadable as the Java Classes or the Power Mac binary. |
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Meshwork
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Meshwork is a Mac only application for creating triangle mesh objects. Meshwork specializes in creating low count triangle meshes. Meshwork exports to several formats including DXF, POV-Ray and 3DMF.
Meshwork is available as a carbonized version for OS X or OS 8 or 9, a classic PowerPC version and a version for 68K Macs! It's $30 shareware and the current version is 2.0.1 |
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PatchDance |
Patchdance is a high-quality, spline based, bezier patch modeler for the Macintosh which exports to several formats including POV-Ray. As of April, 2003, the Patchdance website indicates that development has stopped on the program and the shareware fee for it is being waived. Its author, Paul Sexton says an OS X, open source version may happen some day.
Patchdance is a Classic Mac application and the current version is v1.0b17 |
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HexaSuper2 |
HexaSuper2 is a new English version of the Japanese software package Rokkaku-Daioh Super2. Offered as $54 shareware, HexaSuper2 exports to POV-Ray among other formats, but the demo version has this disabled. This software is now up to version 3 or 4 and, I believe, OS X native but version 2 is the only version you can download. The newer version must be ordered.
HexaSuper2 version 2.1 is an OS 9 program. |
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Amapi |
Amapi 3D/Pro is a commercial 3D modeler/rendering program available for Macintosh and Windows. With many tools and features Amapi 3D can produce professional results. Older versions included an export to POV-Ray feature. I can't verify, but would assume the current version retains this function. Older versions of Amapi have been made available previously for free on CD-ROMs bundled with some 3D magazines and also downloadable on the internet, so keep an eye out.
The current version of Amapi for Mac is 7.0 and is OS X only. |
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