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Cameras and Lighting 
 POV-Ray Tips, 
 Tricks, and Techniques
Camera Pan? 
 
lee inquires: Could someone please tell me what the best way to do a slight pan of the camera in POV-Ray is?  I am doing a series of renderings where the camera moves, and needs to "turn its head" so to speak.  Obviously rotation is out of the question, and I am finding that changing the look_at values is a nightmare.
 
Christian Dummer explains:
 Well, POV-Ray does include sine & cosine functions, so you could use them to modify the look_at or camera position value. (I don't have POV-Ray docs at hand now, so this will be a theorical class only ;-), you will have to translate everything into POV-Ray syntax). 

Lets say you use "clock" as the number of degrees to rotate (assuming that you will only rotate on the x-y plane); the camera position <a,b,c> is to be considered the center of this rotating movement.The radius of the circle described by this movement will be "r". 

Now, <x,y,z> will be the position of your look_at point, with "z" being an arbitrary point (as said, we will be rotating on the x-y plane only). Use the following: 

x = a + r * cos(rad_clock) 
y = b + r * sin(rad_clock) 

...usually, you have to convert the clock value from degrees (0-360) to radians. To do so, use 
rad_clock = clock * pi/180. 

I hope this helps you out...
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