I am familiar with this question.
I am on Arch linux, and am looking for a software the following features :
- Ability to plot iso and parametric surfaces.
- live preview
- Ability to export in pov-ray compatible files - or any raytracer for the matter
- Hopefully T-Splines
My attempts had been :
Povray itself - very difficult to use, due to no live preview, and trial and error correction for light, camera etc.
Gnuplot to povray - it is confusing for me.
Mathics / Julia - to my knowledge doesn't support povray.
Mayavi - no rendering
So please help with your recommendations.