September 1989
(with typographical corrections through May 1995)
This document is version 3.1 of the RenderMan Interface Specification of September, 1989. It supercedes version 3.0, originally published in May, 1988. Version 3.1 corrects various typographical and syntactic errors, and a small number of semantic errors present in version 3.0; however, there are no fundamental changes to the structure, concepts or compliance requirements. In addition, version 3.1 introduces a second binding for the RenderMan Interface: the RenderMan Interface Bytestream Protocol (RIB). RIB provides both an archive file format and a network transport protocol for a sequence of RenderMan Interface library calls.
This document is the official technical specification for the RenderMan Interface. It is quite terse and requires substantial prior knowledge of computer graphics in general and photorealistic image synthesis in particular. For a more casual reference to the RenderMan Interface, the reader is directed to The RenderMan Companion: A Programmer's Guide to Realistic Computer Graphics (Steve Upstill 1989). The first and second printings of The RenderMan Companion (August 1989) corresponds (except for minor errata) to version 3.1 of the RenderMan Interface Specification.
Part I - The RenderMan Interface
Part II - The RenderMan Shading Language
Appendices
Illustrations
Tables
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