Installation

Installation Instructions

First, download the latest version. Then see the platform-specific installation instructions for

Unzip the contents of the distribution archive into a suitable folder - like C:\Program Files\PovChem (or wherever), using WinZip or whatever archive software you use. (PovChem does not require you to put any files in the system folders, and does not access or modify the system registry.)
Windows needs to be able to find the .dll files that come with PovChem, which shouldn't be a problem as long as you're running PovChem from the installation directory. The easiest way to take care of this is to set up the usual shortcut to use for the PovChem program: go to the folder you installed in, right-click the povchem.exe program icon, and select "Create a Shortcut". Right-click the shortcut icon, select "Properties" and then the "Shortcut" tab, and make sure that the "Start in" field contains the name of the folder in which you installed PovChem. You can copy this shortcut onto the desktop or the Start menu, or wherever.
PovChem requires the OpenGL shared libraries (opengl32.dll and glu32.dll). Most Windows systems will have these available already; if you get a message like "Missing required DLL opengl32.dll", then download the OpenGL libraries and put these two .dll files into the same folder that PovChem is installed in.
See the registration page for instructions on purchasing a registration key.

Unstuff the contents of the distribution archive into a suitable folder, using Stuffit Expander or whatever archival software you use. (PovChem does not put or require any files in the system folder.)
PovChem uses a number of shared libraries that the OS will need to be able to find. As long as you keep all the distribution files in the same folder as the executable, this should work fine. You can make an alias for the main program to put on your desktop, apple menus, etc.
PovChem requires Apple's OpenGL extension library, which you'll have to download and install.
See the registration page for instructions on purchasing a registration key.

Uncompress and un-tar the contents of the distribution archive, and place in a suitable folder - like /usr/local/povchem (or wherever). On most systems, this can be accomplished by the commands "mkdir povchem ; cd povchem ; gzcat <path>/povchem-<platform>.tar.gz | tar xof -".
The operating system needs to be able to find the shared libraries (*.so) that come with PovChem. Unfortunately, just how to do this can vary a bit depending on your specific platform. The best solution is to use the executable shell script provided with PovChem, called "povchem", which contains a line that looks like:
```
EXEDIR=/usr/local/povchem
```
Edit the file so that EXEDIR contains the name of the directory in which you installed PovChem. Then you can copy it to /usr/local/bin or ~/bin or wherever you put executables, or create an alias to run this script.
PovChem requires the OpenGL system libraries. On SGIs running IRIX, these should be available by default (libGL.so and libGLU.so). On Linux, the Mesa OpenGL emulation libraries are included (libMesaGL.so and libMesaGLU.so) - they're Mesa 3.0, and you can replace them with your own libraries if you want. All UNIX versions also require libXmu.so. If one of these libraries is missing, you'll probably have to get your system administrator to install it for you.
See the registration page for instructions on purchasing a registration key.