Rendering software

A number of rendering packages are available for use at SAPAC.

Most of the packages in use are readily available as freeware, and often for more than one operating system. They may readily be installed on users' own machines.

Uses include visualisation of scientific data, visualisation of mathematical concepts and formulae, and 3D object description and scene generation. Most packages have some capability for animation, though the ease with which this may be undertaken varies between packages

A list of currently available software is given in the next column.

Several object editors/converters are also available, for generating and editing models used within the rendering packages.

Allied to the use of rendering software for scene generation and visualisation, SAPAC is able to produce animations and soundtracks (including in Dolby 5.1) via the Adobe Video Suite.

3ds max : commerical modelling, animation and rendering package. Available on the SAVRC Windows PC's, and may be run there on a small rendering cluster.

POV-Ray : a freeware ray-tracer; avilable for Mac, Windows and Linux/Unix; available for installation on individual machines (including the visualisation suite). Good for visualisation in mathematics, and many objects and utilities (including for animation) are available on the Web.

Blender : a freeware ray-tracer, originally for Linux, but ported to Mac and Windows. Uses meshes for object generation, and the inherent animation facilities are more advanced than those for POV-Ray.

MAYA Personal Learning Edition : a free but reduced-functionality version of the widely-used Alias|Wavefront package.

Terragen: a freeware (registration fee required for commercial use) landscape generator and renderer. Available for Mac and Windows. Capable of photo-realistic rendering of scenes; can import DEM data. Camera animation can be scripted.

3DEM : a visualiser for DEM data, and can generate Terragen terrain files therefrom. Also can import NASA MOLA data.

PoseRay / Crossroads / Wings3D : editors and conversion utilities. Used for POV-Ray, 3DS, LWO, COB objects.