Povlab development stopped

Povlab is a 3D modeller for the well-known POV-Ray raytracing engine. I have been porting this program to wxWindows since 1999, but I have less and less time for this purpose, so, today, I officially declare that I am giving up, and that I am sorry for the poor result.

Any developper whishing to replace me is welcome: join the project, drop me a message, and I will give you all administrative rights.

If I have a few seconds available for Povlab before my death, I would like to post my lastest version (with textures, wow!), old DOS versions (these can be found on the web, though), and documentation from old development site.

I said that I am sorry with the poor result... it is natural to ask why, in more than 4 years, I could not port this DOS program to wxWindows. I think that I overestimated the time I could spend on it, and my plans for POVLAB inflated too much: I decided to translate the source code in English, re-write it in C++ and port it to a muli-plaform GUI environment (wxWindows) at the same time, which was certainly not a bad idea; just too ambitious for me alone. I think the major mistake was to re-write it in C++: this opened the process too much, rendering it potentially endless, and discouraging developpers.

If I could continue with the project, I would give up the C++ re-write and restart with the old C code, remove the DOS GUI code, and replace it with wxWidnows GUI code (which I would have to write, of course... but this is partly done): this would make a first usable version, which would be a strong milestone, and maybe raise interest from users and developpers. Next, I would translate old source code in English. Next, I would upgrade to use latest POV-Ray version and features. Next, rewrite parts of the program in C++. And then, we could start thinking about OpenGL rendering, more features, animation, and GUI renewal.

Philippe de Lagrange,
POVLAB project administrator