Scene description language

A scene description language is any description language used to describe a scene to a 3D renderer, such as a ray tracer. The scene is written in a text editor (which may include syntax highlighting), as opposed to being modeled in a graphical way, but a 3D modelling program may allow for a scene to be exported to a specified scene description language.

Some scene description languages may include variables, constants, conditional statements, and while and for loops.

For example, 3DMLW and X3D are XML-based scene description languages; YafaRay also employs an XML-based language. Tao Presentations uses XL as a dynamic document description language. POV-Ray has its own Turing-complete language.