Package: aiidalab-vapory
VaporyVapory is a Python library to render photo-realistic 3D scenes with the free ray-tracing enginePOV-Ray.Here is how you would draw a purple sphere:fromvaporyimport*camera=Camera('location',[0,2,-3],'look_at',[0,1,2])light=LightSource([2,4,-3],'color',[1,1,1])sphere=Sphere([0,1,2],2,Texture(Pigment('color',[1,0,1])))scene=Scene(camera,objects=[light,sphere])scene.render("purple_sphere.png",width=400,height=300)Vapory enables to pipe the rendered images back into Python and integrates very well in the Python libraries ecosystem (seethis blog postfor examples)Vapory is an open-source software originally written byZulko, released under the MIT licence, and hosted onGithub, where everyone is welcome to contribute or ask for support.InstallationVapory should work on any platform with Python 2.7+ or Python 3.You first need to install POV-Ray. Seeherefor the Windows binaries. For Linux/MacOS you mustcompile the source(tested on Ubuntu, it’s easy).If you have PIP installed you can :(sudo) pip install vaporyIf you have neither setuptools nor ez_setup installed the command above will fail, is this case type this before installing:(sudo) pip install ez_setupVapory can also be installed manually by unzipping the source code in one directory and typing in a terminal:(sudo) python setup.py installGetting startedIn Vapory you create a scene, and then render it:fromvaporyimport*scene=Scene(camera=mycamera,# a Camera objectobjects=[light,sphere],# POV-Ray objects (items, lights)atmospheric=[fog],# Light-interacting objectsincluded=["colors.inc"])# headers that POV-Ray may needscene.render("my_scene.png",# output to a PNG image filewidth=300,height=200,# in pixels. Determines the camera ratio.antialiasing=0.01# The nearer from zero, the more precise the image.quality=1)# quality=1 => no shadow/reflection, quality=10 is 'normal'# passing 'ipython' as argument at the end of an IPython Notebook cell# will display the picture in the IPython notebook.scene.render('ipython',width=300,height=500)# passing no 'file' arguments returns the rendered image as a RGB numpy arrayimage=scene.render(width=300,height=500)Objects are defined by passing a list of arguments:camera = Camera( 'location', [0,2,-3], 'look_at', [0,1,2] )Keep in mind that this snippet will later be transformed into POV-Ray code by converting each argument to a string and placing them on different lines, to make a valid POV-Ray codecamera {
    location
    <0,1,0>
    look_at
    <0,0,0>
}All the objects (Sphere, Box, Plane… with a few exceptions) work the same way. Therefore syntax of Vapory is the same as the syntax of POV-Ray. To learn how to use the different objects:Have a look at the scenes in theexamplesfolderSee the docstring of the different objects, which provides a basic example.See the onlinePOV-Ray documentationwhich will give you all the possible uses of each object (there can be many !). This documentation is easily accessible from Vapory, just type`Sphere.help(),Plane.help()etc., it will open it in your browser.Finally, it is easy to find POV-Ray examples online and transcribe them back into Vapory.Missing FeaturesFor the moment a many features (Sphere, Fog, etc.) are implemented but not all of them (POV-Ray has a LOT of possible shapes and capabilities).It is really easy to add new features, because they all basically do the same thing, are just empty classes. For instance here is how Camera is implemented:class Camera(POVRayElement):
    """ Camera([type,]  'location', [x,y,z], 'look_at', [x,y,z]) """Yep, that’s all, but just the name of the class is sufficient for Vapory to understand that this will translate into POV-Ray codecamera{...}. So in most case it shouldn’t be difficult to create your own new feature. If you need a non-implemented feature to be included in the package, just open an issue or push a commit.