README.1ST

Polyray - an algebraic input rendering program
(c) 1995 Alexander Enzmann
Version 1.8
All Rights Reserved

Polyray is a combination of an extensive set of modelling primitives together
with a comprehensive renderer.  Models are specified in an ASCII file, which
are then parsed, and subsequently rendered.  An IBM-AT or compatible is the
only platform currently supported.  An 80386/80387 combination, 80486DX, or
Pentium CPU plus at least 2Mb of RAM is required.

Polyray provides a number of distinct features, the most important of which
are the freedom of use of expressions in the modelling file and the ability
to render very complex mathematical surfaces.

There are three archives necessary: ply18doc.zip, ply18dat.zip, and
ply18exe.zip. These contain the documents for Polyray, a set of data files,
and the executable.  A few utilities, notably a TTF font to glyph converter
are found in the archive ply18utl.zip

See the file "quickref.txt", or "polyray.doc" for details on the command
line options and data file syntax.  Unzip ply18dat (using -d flag) and run
the batch file MAKEALL.BAT to automatically generate samples of what Polyray
can do.

Note that there have been a number of changes to the command line flags and
ini file options.  Another important change is the use of the POLYRAY_PATH
environment variable to find include files and image files.