Persistence of Vision Raytracer (POV-Ray for short) is an open source renderer available on many platforms that builds images using the ray tracing method. The program is based on DKBTrace, but also draws on other similar solutions (mainly Polyray). Scenes built for POV-Ray are described in its own language, which is based on simple geometric objects and CSG operations on them.

This language also allows the use of loops and conditional instructions, variables and arrays, for software on more complex surfaces. The program additionally simulates various types of lighting, atmospheric phenomena and surface effects. Currently, many popular modeling programs have a built-in export to POV-Ray format, or - like Blender - offers the appropriate plug-ins.

POV-Ray has been constantly developed since 1991, which resulted in the extension of radiation tracking to include the calculation of lighting energy method (radiosity). Work on support for multicore systems is also in progress. However, even despite its many years of legacy, POV-Ray has been developing slowly for a long time and the quality of the resulting images gives way to those obtained using Kerkythea or YafaRay renderers.

However, POV-Ray remains popular at technical universities and as a synthetic test for CPU performance analysis.