Artastic !!

Most, (if not all), of the images on my website have been created using either the GIMP, or POV-Ray. A full list of the images on my web site and which program was used to create them is given at the end of this page. Eventually I hope to upload a gallery of my 'creations' for you to download and view. I also hope (this is getting a bit pretentious now) to include some beginner's tutorials on using these packages some time in the future.
Below is a short explaination of what each of these programs is and does:

The GIMP:

GIMP is freeware. I thought the word 'free' would get your attention. But that is no reason to scuff at it since the GIMP, or the GNU Image Manipulation Program to give it its full title, is as powerful as the leading image manipulation programs that are commercially available today. You just don't have to fork out a pretty penny to aqcuire it is all, and believe me as a student that is as good an incentive as any. Currently though the Gimp is only available for X-Window envirionments and I don't think there are any plans to port it to another platform in the near future. One of the main quibbles of new users with the GIMP for some time has been the lack of an official manual, however this oversight has been recently rectified with the introduction of GUM or the Gimp User Manual as of version 1.0.2.

POV-RAY:

POV-Ray(tm) or Persistance Of Vision Ray-Tracer is, as the name suggests, a raytracing program that allows you to create 3D photo realistic images. The great thing is that it too is free (you heard me this time). If you have a passing interest in raytracing, or are thinking in becoming involved in the whole area of 3D generated images, then POV-Ray is a nice program to get you on the way; and just because it's relatively cheap (if you call 'free' relatively cheap) doesn't mean it isn't powerful ... it is. The official description of POV-Ray goes something along the lines of --

"a Ray-Tracer that creates three-dimensional, photo-realistic images using a rendering technique called ray-tracing. It reads in a text file containing information describing the objects and lighting in a scene and generates an image of that scene from the view point of a camera also described in the text file. Ray-tracing is not a fast process by any means, but it produces very high quality images with realistic reflections, shading, perspective and other effects."

Another benefit is that POV-Ray is available under many platforms, 10 by my last count: MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95, Windows NT , Apple Macintosh 68k, Power PC, Commodore Amiga, Linux and UNIX. Unofficially POV-Ray is probably available for many other platfroms too. Untill recently the only drawback to POV-Ray was that it didn't come with its own modeller, but this really isn't a problem anymore because there are many third-party freeware/shareware modellers out there that directly support POV-Ray. One good example is POVLab which can be used directly with POVRay and some other rendering packages.

Below is the list of images on my web site and the corresponding program that was used to create each one.

Image Name:	Created Using:
Art page header	The GIMP
Main Page header	The GIMP
Me Page header	The GIMP
Menu buttons	The GIMP