How to compile and install povray in Ubuntu, Debian and distro derivates

Povray is a ray tracer available for several systems, although on unix systems you need to compile it, but it's easy following these steps:

Compile and install

Install the libraries you need to compile:

sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev libpng12-dev libjpeg-dev libtiff5-dev libopenexr-dev libsdl1.2-dev libboost-system1.55-dev libboost1.55-dev git

Download the latest source code:

git clone https://github.com/POV-Ray/povray.git povray

Compile and install:

cd povray/unix
./prebuild.sh
cd ..
./configure COMPILED_BY="your name" LIBS="-lboost_system -lboost_thread"
make
sudo make install

Now, povray is installed in your computer.

Note: You needn't LIBS="-lboost_system -lboost_thread" in Debian.

How to use

You can generate a Full HD image with this command:

povray -W1920 -H1024 file.pov

Pov file is a text file with all the instructions in povray language to render a image (may be a very big file).

You can get amazing images like this: