Dear Radiance Users,
It has been nearly a year since I've sent out a Radiance Digest,
so there's rather a lot of material to sift through here. As
usual, I've tried to break things up into somewhat coherent subjects,
but in the process I've collected e-mails that were originally
separated by many months. I hope this doesn't cause any undue
confusion, and cronology is at least maintained within each section.
A good part of the delay in this edition is the delay in a release
of Radiance itself. Since I was discussing in some cases as-yet-
unreleased features, I didn't want to taunt the greater
user population with things they couldn't even try. Now that 2.3
is out, there's nothing to stop us...
Since there is so much here, I've broken it into two parts to avoid
the 100K limit of some mailers.
These are the topics covered in this mailing:
SKY SOURCES AND RGB - Dealing with the sky and what is RGB, anyway?
CAD TRANSLATORS - How to get to Radiance from CAD systems
WIREFRAME - Generating wireframe renderings w/o CAD
SHARED IMAGES - Some pictures to share by J. Mardaljevic
SENSITIVITY RUNS - Ambient (-a*) parameters and accuracy
USING BRDF DATA - How to apply BRDF data in Radiance
IES SOURCES - The standard IES format and source library
Enjoy!
-Greg
===============================================================
SKY SOURCES AND RGB
From: georg@ise.fhg.de
Subject: light and glow
To: GJWard@lbl.gov
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 19:12:24 MEZ
Hi Greg!
The third mail this day, but there is something, I don't understand:
glow and light give different results with rtrace ( light is two times
the glow). Is this the case in general, or do I have to take care which
of both I use ?
Here is a small test ( the camera looking upwards) :
#glow:
void glow sky_glow
0
0
4 1 1 1 0
sky_glow source sky
0
0
4 0 0 1 180
gives:
oconv test.rad
rtrace -x 1 -I -ab 1
SOFTWARE= RADIANCE 2.1 official release May 20, 1992
FORMAT=ascii
3.141593e+00 3.141593e+00 3.141593e+00
-----------------------------------------------------
#light:
void light sky_glow
0
0
3 1 1 1
sky_glow source sky
0
0
4 0 0 1 180
gives:
oconv test.rad
rtrace -x 1 -I -ab 1
SOFTWARE= RADIANCE 2.1 official release May 20, 1992
FORMAT=ascii
6.283185e+00 6.283185e+00 6.283185e+00
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 11:40:38 PST
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: georg@ise.fhg.de
Subject: Re: light and glow
Dear Georg,
The value for glow is more accurate. You simply cannot use a light source
that takes up the whole sky, because it will not be calculated correctly.
In order for the source calculation to work for the sky, it would have to
subdivide it into many pieces. Although this is theoretically possible
and even feasible within Radiance, it is preferable to treat such large
sources as part of the indirect calculation, since they do not cast
strong shadows.
I hope this answers your question.
-Greg
From: mcardle@eol.ists.ca (Steve McArdle)
Subject: Radiance Package
To: gjward@lbl.gov
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 12:43:38 -0400
Greg Ward
I'm trying to get specific information regarding the radiance programs.
I'm in the process of trying to simulate data for a forest scene in
clear sky's and under cloud to determine the apparent reflectance of a
given area. However, because of limited documentation on not sure if the
program is capable of performing these tasks. I was wondering if you had
technical information on formulas, specific wavelengths used for RGB, or
any assumptions. If you do not maybe you could direct me to where I
might find this information out. The work I'm doing is related to part
of M Sc. thesis work studing effects on reflectance under varying
illumination conditions any help would be much appreciated.
Thank
Steven McArdle
York University
Toronto, Ont Canada
mcardle@eol.ists.ca
--
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 93 10:05:32 PDT
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: mcardle@eol.ists.ca
Subject: Re: Radiance Package
Hi Steven,
There is a document in the Radiance distribution called "materials.1" in the
ray/doc directory that gives the formulas used for lighting calculations.
I suggest you look there first. I make no assumptions about what exactly
is meant by the red, green and blue components, except that these are the
components given to the display device. For the purposes of calculation,
you may assume that they correspond to total energy (and are equal) or
represent parts of the infrared spectrum. Radiance really doesn't care
as it contains no spectrum-specific computations.
-Greg
From: mcardle@eol.ists.ca (Steve McArdle)
Subject: Radiance help
To: greg@hobbes.lbl.gov (Gregory J. Ward)
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 20:28:03 -0400
Hi Greg
I am running into a slight problem using gensky command and I don't
really have anybody to turn to for help. We here have version 2.1 which
has been ported to Hp Apollo 9000 series 700, I have some documentation
but the information describing the features are limited. I need your
help to verfy that I'm on the right track and if I understand what's going on.
To refresh, I am creating a simple forest scene of cone shape trees for
clear sky and a cloudy sky. I am using gensky commmand to describe the
distribution of the light but I am not sure if I am using it right. Here
is the file
!gensky 7 23 8 +s -a 45.5 -o 79.8 -m 75
skyfunc light sky
0
0
3 305 331 291
sky source skylight
0
0
3 0 0 1000 180
this is the file I used to create a clear sunny day on july 23 8 am at that
lat/long with radiance value given by skyfunc. I have separate files for
the ground and the trees. Now my questions to you are;
[1] what does skyfunc describe is it the radiance value of the light
source or is it suppose to define the sky radiance.
[2]also is the radiance value at the top of the atmosphere or at the
ground or where the source is defined (z=1000)
[3] does gensky work out the radiance value for that position or just the
distribution pattern and I am suppose to input the radiance value
[4] is the source describing the surface of the sky and does it matter
if set the z component to 1 or 1000
[5] should I be using light or glow?
I used the same command to create a cloudy sky except instead of +s I
used -c for CIE distribution. How ever I got some pretty high radiance
values.
[6] For the cloudy sky I take it that I am suppose to adjust the light source
for radiance values for light coming beneath the cloud.
[7] how do I define the suface of cloud
some other questions
[8] I asume that the RGB wavelengths are the CIE wavelengths
[9] in using rview and rpict there is an option for ambient light -av.
Is this option suppose to represent the sky radiance or the ambient
light between the objects i.e cones
[10] this is good one what would be the number of indirect light
calculation for a real seen -ab 10 ,20 ,30 ?
I guess you could say I'm a little confused and I would gladly
appreciate any help you could give me.
Steve
--
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 17:46:06 PDT
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: mcardle@eol.ists.ca
Subject: Re: Radiance help
Hi Steve,
The gensky call you gave as an example was fine, but what followed it was
a little bit off. You had:
skyfunc light sky
0
0
3 305 331 291
sky source skylight
0
0
3 0 0 1000 180
A more sensible description is:
skyfunc glow sky
0
0
4 .9 .9 1.2 0
sky source skylight
0
0
3 0 0 1 180
A sky source should be of type glow rather than light (question 5), and
the RGB values are actually modifying the sky radiance, as determined
by the "skyfunc" description produced by gensky (question 3). Gensky
with the +s option (default) produces both a description of the sun and
the sky radiance distribution, although the latter is not actually applied
to anything in gensky (question 1). To specify a zenith radiance other
than the default determined by gensky from solar altitude, sky type and
atmospheric turbidity, use the -b option of gensky (question 2). The
third real argument in the source descripiton is merely the z component of
the direction vector, and has nothing to do with radiance values. Since
the direction vector gets normalized, it actually doesn't matter what positive
value you give for z if x and y are zero (question 4).
The CIE cloudy sky is actually full overcast, ie. there are not clouds visible
and no "under cloud" radiance changes (question 6). It is simply a smoothly
varying function that peaks at the zenith and drops steadily to one third this
value at the horizon. There are no clouds and no cloud surfaces in a Radiance
sky. If you wish to add your own pattern to the skyfunc distribution given
by gensky, you may use and of the brightfunc, colorfunc, brightdata, and
colordata primitives to create a variation in radiance as a function of
sky direction (question 7).
Question 8:
The RGB units are typical computer graphics monitor phosphors, not CIE XYZ
If you want to convert from XYZ to RGB or vice versa, you may use the
routines in src/common/spec_rgb.c.
Question 9:
For exterior scenes, use the value suggested by gensky for the -av parameter
of rpict or rview. For example, "gensky 7 23 8 +s -a 45.5 -o 79.8 -m 75"
produces the following file:
# gensky 7 23 8 +s -a 45.5 -o 79.8 -m 75
# Solar altitude and azimuth: 30.687400 -88.286823
# Ground ambient level: 15.379269
void light solar
0
0
3 6.19e+06 6.19e+06 6.19e+06
solar source sun
0
0
4 0.859580 -0.025710 0.510354 0.5
void brightfunc skyfunc
2 skybright skybright.cal
0
7 -1 7.64e+00 1.52e+01 4.04e-01 0.859580 -0.025710 0.510354
The suggested ambient level is 15.379heyaretherereallythismanydigits, so
you might run rview with:
rview -av 15.4 15.4 15.4 ... octree
Question 10:
I don't think I've ever needed a value for -ab above 4, and for exterior
scenes, -ab 1 is perfectly adequate.
What documenation do you have, by the way?
-Greg
From: apian@ise.fhg.de
Subject: RGB nm values ?
To: gjward@lbl.gov (Greg Ward)
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 15:36:18 +0100 (MEZ)
Hi,
Have I overlooked something or are there any hints where (in terms of
nanometer) the 3 channels (RGB) should be ?
The raytracing itself is probably independent, how about gensky, ximage,
conversion watt->luminance ?
(probably a very naive beginner's question) :-)
Peter
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Apian-Bennewitz apian@ise.fhg.de
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems Tel +49-761-4588-123
(Germany) D-79100 Freiburg, Oltmannsstrasse 5, Fax +49-761-4588-302
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 93 08:00:14 PST
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: apian@ise.fhg.de
Subject: Re: RGB nm values ?
Hi Peter,
This is not really a naive question, and I'm afraid I don't have a very
good answer for you. The RGB values are defined in terms of average
chromaticity coordinates of a computer monitor, and I don't have any
corresponding spectral curves. The conversion between watts and lumens
is simply a constant, 179 lumens/watt. This constant was derived by
integrating white light over the visible spectrum, but if you try to
reproduce this result yourself, you're likely to get a slightly different
answer because it depends keenly on what is considered visible (ie. the
limits of integration).
In the end, the constant is not terribly important because it gets applied
at the beginning to get radiance from luminance, then inversly at the end
to get lumiance from radiance. As long as the same value is used, the
result is independent of the constant chosen.
This is the short answer. The long answer would require more space and
more thought on my part!
-Greg
==============================================================
CAD TRANSLATORS
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 10:08:44 PST
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: raydist, raylocal
Subject: Radiance CAD translators
Mark Wright of the Speech, Vision and Robotics Group at Cambridge writes:
Hello,
Do you know a path from the IGES or VDA-FS CAD data
formats into the radiance raytrace?
I want to construct a number of fairly complex 3D models
from HP's ME30 3D CAD system to rayshade or Radiance ray tracers.
The ME30 package outputs IGES or VDA-FS.
I know packages that will take nff, off files and output to the
the raytracer. I am looking for a public domain/shareware filter
or package that has this ability built in.
--------------------
If you know of any such translator, or have written a translator yourself
from any popular CAD format to Radiance, I think we'd all like to know.
Please send mail to me (GJWard@lbl.gov) if you have a translator that you
would be willing to make available for free or for a price, with or without
support, to a larger audience.
Thanks!
-Greg
Date: 11 Jan 1993 16:13:21 -0800
From: "Matthews, Kevin"
Subject: RE: Radiance CAD translators
To: "Gregory J. Ward"
Greg,
Regarding your inquiry about CAD translators to Radiance, our software
DesignWorkshop(tm) will be capable of supporting Architrion text and DXF to
Radiance, with WYSIWYG view specification transfer from the DesignWorkshop
dynamic viewing environment (along with the geometry file we export canned
shell scripts for rview and rpict with default parameters-actually you might
like to comment on the params we've come up with so far).
DesignWorkshop definately falls into the "for a price" and "supported"
categories, although our academic price is $145 per single user license. At
the academic price DW might be cheap enough for someone to get it just to use
for translation, although it would be a little funny, and it mostly duplicates
capabilities you already support. DW makes the translation more interactive
(as well as being a great modeler in its own right).
Information on DesignWorkshop follows in case you or your correspondents are
interested. Additional info on request...
Regards,
Kevin
______________________________________________________________________________
DesignWorkshop(tm)
... three-dimensional modeling for conceptual design and design development
DesignWorkshop(tm) brings the simplicity of the classic Macintosh drawing
interface for the first time to architectural design modeling and spatial
visualization. Solid objects are created in live perspective or orthographic
views by simple three-dimensional dragging with the mouse, and moving,
resizing, and extruding are all accomplished in the normal selection mode
without any special tools. It's the fastest legal way to model your building!
Modeling
o fully three-dimensional direct-manipulation Mac-style interface
o graphically create and reshape cuboids, cylindrical columns, extruded arches
and mouldings, contour site models, etc.
o click-and-drag in any view to create and resize openings in solid-object
walls
o sophisticated internal technology- feature-based solid-modeling with
intelligent polygonal BREP objects and floating-point coordinate accuracy
o 3D object snaps, paste PICT image onto face of 3D object, etc.
Viewing
o drag with the "eye" and "look" tools for fully dynamic design-oriented view
adjustment
o two-dimensional and three-dimensional zoom
o plan, section, elevation, perspective, and axonometric views, all fully
editable
o shaded sections without cutting model, poched automatically
o open multiple documents with multiple windows for each document
Rendering
o wireframe, hidden-line, flat shaded, and shadow-cast in 32-bit color
o sun studies rendered in parallel and recorded directly as QuickTime movies
o walkthroughs by view list with variable interpolation, saved as QuickTime
Interchange
o full clipboard support-copy and paste from 3D to 3D, 3D to 2D, or 2D to 3D
o import and export Claris CAD, PICT, Architrion, DXF, Radiance formats
o publish views from 3D to 2D for drafting, images for presentation, data for
analysis
Output
o print current window at any time with any standard Mac QuickDraw or
PostScript printer
o save current window at any time as an object or bit-map PICT file.
Objects and Data
o read and edit object dimensions, parameters, materials in Object Info windoid
o create live data links to external applications
General
o built-in designer's markup pencil and eraser-markups print and save with
image
o straightforward site modeling and contour editing
Available
o First release shipping 2-93. List price $895. (Quantity and academic
pricing available).
o Money-back satisfaction guarantee, 90 days
o Special Pre-Release Price, $295, available through 1-31-93
o A pre-release purchase gets you software now, and includes the full release
version as soon as it's available.
For more information on DesignWorkshop(tm), or to order, contact Artifice:
Artifice, Inc. P.O. Box 1588, Eugene, OR 97440. 503-345-7421 voice,
503-346-3626 fax, AppleLink D3624, Internet dmatthew@oregon.uoregon.edu
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 21:46:01 PST
From: chas (Charles Ehrlich)
To: greg
Subject: Re: Radiance CAD translators
Greg,
Just about any 3D CAD format can be used by Radiance...in one form or
another. My favorite way to translate data from out-of-the-ordinary
sources is to use the Macintosh software called CADMover by Kandu
software. An IGES file, for example, can be translated into a DXF
file, and then the DXF file translated into Radiance with DXFCVT. I
have had good success with this process. I reccommend that Radiance
users separate their 3D geometry files by material type thereby
facilitating the process of defining surface material properties.
Any questions, call 415 882-4497. Leave a message telling me when
and where I can call you, collect.
Chas
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 14:32:28 +1100
From: angus@cgl.citri.edu.au
To: greg@hobbes.lbl.gov (Gregory J. Ward)
Subject: Re: Radiance CAD translators
to the best of my knowledge, there are no public-domain implementations
of IGES readers, probably because the standard is the size of a telephone-
book (it was written by committee - need i say more).
i wrote the beginnings of an IGES reader a couple of years ago for my boss,
but the project was shelved.
_any_ implementations of IGES readers are likely to be incomplete due to the
number of different primitives & cases in the standard.
i have recently seen a number of postings on the net looking for public-
domain IGES readers, and they have all resulted in failure.
.angus.
angus@cgl.citri.edu.au
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 93 16:34:52 EDT
From: spencer@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Stephen N. Spencer)
To: gjward@lbl.gov
Subject: radiance
greg - how's it going? you can add to your list of appearances a slide in
the 1992 SIGGRAPH Educator's Slide Set -- we did use the conference room
slide and image pair.
what do you use for modeling/scene building? we've found the steps needed
to do even simple texture mapping real difficult. hate to say this, but
it's just not very intuitive. have others commented on this? is there
any relief/tips/etc? has there been any further development of RADIANCE
since v2r1 in may 1992?
thanks!
steve spencer
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 93 19:01:26 PDT
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: spencer@cgrg.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: radiance
Hi Steve,
I still rely heavily on vi for scene building myself, though others working
closely with me use Vision3D or Architrion on the Mac, or AutoCAD. Vision3D
is by Paul Bourke and has a Radiance file output option. The software is
available in the pub/mac directory on hobbes.lbl.gov. The text output format
of Architrion is translated by arch2rad, but unfortunately, the text format
has been abandoned in favor of DXF in more recent releases of the software.
Someone in Zurich has written a highly-touted translator that runs within
AutoCAD, and is available in the pub/translators directory on hobbes. I've
heard many good things about this translator from folks who've used it, but
I haven't had much chance to apply it myself. I'm not much of a CAD user,
I'm afraid.
I agree that adding textures and patterns to a Radiance description is far
from intuitive. In an effort to be general, I made things a bit too cryptic.
On the other hand, the input language was not really meant to be the interface
to average users. It has ended up that way, though, due largely to a lack
of funding for a front end. It wouldn't be so bad if I'd at least managed
to document stuff, but I haven't even gotten enough money for that. (As
an alternative to the Department of Energy, I've been trying to interest a
publisher in doing a Radiance book. So far, I haven't had much luck.) I'm
amazed that despite all the obstacles, there are still some users who manage
to figure out how to do most things with little or no help from me.
If you give me an example picture or something you want to apply and the
surface you want it applied to, I'd be happy to whip it out for you.
Regarding new Radiance developments, I haven't just been sitting on my
thumbs over here. In fact, I've been ready to go with release 2.2 for
over six months, but the DOE won't let me release it. They're in the
process of deciding how to "market" Radiance, and are concerned about
the large public distribution we've had to date. Version 2.2 will
have two significant and many minor improvements over 2.1. The first
important change is the addition of techniques for parallel and network
distributed rendering. The second change is the addition of a new
executive program for running oconv, rpict, pfilt and rview that sets
options more intelligently based on user input of qualitative information.
Hopefully, the DOE will come to their senses in the next few months and
we'll make a new release available. In the long run, I'm looking for
some way to completely redesign the Radiance input format to clear up
a lot of the confusing and irrelevant aspects of the current format
in favor of something more general and "programmable". Still, I don't
expect vi to be the input modeler of choice for most people...
-Greg
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 09:48:43 EDT
From: spencer@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Stephen N. Spencer)
To: greg@hobbes.lbl.gov
Subject: radiance
Thanks for the lengthy and speedy reply, Greg.
Sorry to hear that DOE is wondering about what to do about all the happy
RADIANCE users out there. Can we write letters to someone?
We don't have AutoCAD here, unfortunately, so can't use that translator.
I do recall, though, you touting it as a really cool filter.
> I agree that adding textures and patterns to a Radiance description is far
> from intuitive. In an effort to be general, I made things a bit too cryptic.
Ahhh, the 'general-purpose-solution-makes-no-one-really-happy' thing.
As you may recall, we use our own scene-description program, and send the
output of it through a program "ani2rad" which generates a ".rad" file.
I'm probably going to rewrite that stuff, though, since we're using a new
scene-description (keyframe animation, actually) program here these days,
and having *that* program write a ".rad" file directly. There is a bit of
"vi" or "emacs" being used as a front end to Radiance, though, to massage
the ".rad" file before Radiance uses it, for two reasons: (a) lining up the
texture maps, and (b) adding in Radiance features that my program doesn't
handle (like spotlights, though that will change in this new program).
I'm sure you'll let us all know when 2.2 is allowed to be released. Let
me know if there's letter-writing that could help the situation. Agreed,
a new interface would be wonderful. Have you considered having Radiance
read RIB (Pixar's RenderMan) files as input?
Stephen N. Spencer Graphics Research Specialist ,__o
spencer@cgrg.ohio-state.edu spencer@siggraph.org ---- _-\_<,
(614) 292-3416 ---- (*)/'(*)
"and the things we need the most to say are the things we never mention" - E.S.
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 08:44:37 PDT
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: spencer@cgrg.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: radiance
Hi Steve,
Yes, I have had a look at RenderMan. It's a very advanced interface when
it comes to geometry, and the shading offers many advanced features, but
it's completely non-physical. In fact, it is very difficult to produce
a physically correct model with RenderMan, as the parameters used in its
reflectance model have no physical meaning. RIB is just a sequence of
specialized subroutine calls, so being fully RIB compliant means adopting
the RenderMan renderer (or at least their methods).
-Greg
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 11:49:47 EDT
From: spencer@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Stephen N. Spencer)
To: greg@hobbes.lbl.gov
Subject: radiance
Agreed -- RenderMan's not physically based at all. Still spits out neat
pictures, though, if that's what you want. I was suggesting it more for the
scene description format, but if it's not able to describe a scene sufficiently
then that's not an option.
steve
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 08:56:10 PDT
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: spencer@cgrg.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: radiance
The scene geometry is very well-defined in RenderMan. Better, in fact, than
can be understood by Radiance. (More higher order primitives, etc.) Others
have used the RIB exporters of ArchiCAD, for example, to produce Radiance
input. Writing a completely general RIB translator is much more difficult,
however.
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 93 18:01:19 GMT
From: jon@esru.strathclyde.ac.uk (jon)
To: greg , mike.donn@vuw.ac.nz
Subject: availibility of esp-radiance translator
ESP-r - Radiance Desktop
Jon Hand
A recent enhancement of the ESP-r system has been the
creation of a link to the Radiance lighting simulation pack-
age authored by Greg Ward of LBL. This takes the form of a
program called "rad" which is able to take an ESP-r problem
configuration file and to generate not only the sky, outside
and room descriptive files used by Radiance but to act as a
desk-top which drives many of the Radiance executables.
At present rad picks up the surface properties (reflec-
tion is greyscale at present) from the ESP-r definition and
creates colours for each surface while building the files.
It executes several of the radiance executables to build the
sky definition, octrees etc.
Only in the case of not quite planer surfaces (radiance
is much tighter on this than ESP-r) have we had to resort to
editing the descriptive files. Currently we have generated
external views of a number of our thermal simulation prob-
lems and getting to the point of starting up rpict usually
requires about five minutes. Of course if non-grey images
or surface textures are required there would be additional
user intervention required.
On the todo list are:
1) picking up glazing transmission characteristics from
our optical database (a general default transmission is
used currently),
2) facilities related to describing lighting fixtures,
furniture and the like (as this sort of clutter does
not often get described for thermal simulations)
sorting out interior views that have adjacent rooms which
see each other (case of picking up more topology information
from esp-r).
In order that others might test and comment on the
facilities I have placed on the Strathclyde ftp server the
rad executable (Sun4 requires X11R5) and two radiance file
sets and a few pic files. If you are interested please email
esru@strathclyde.ac.uk for instructions on picking up the
files.
Regards,
Jon Hand
October 30, 1993
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 93 08:28:07 PST
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: jon@esru.strathclyde.ac.uk
Subject: Re: availibility of esp-radiance translator
Great, Jon!
Now, I just have to get you to change the name! The next release of Radiance,
due in a week or two, has a new executive program called "rad" also. I expect
that you will want to use this at least a little in your own interface, as
it has some built-in intelligence for setting rendering parameters, using
ambient files, recovering aborted images, etc.
-Greg
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 93 16:37:16 GMT
From: jon@esru.strathclyde.ac.uk (jon)
To: greg
Subject: rename and new version of radiance
Greg,
I would be happy to change the name - perhaps
e2r or something. Keep me posted on when
the new version comes out and how to access
it.
Jon Hand
==================================================================
WIREFRAME
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 16:27:00 NDT
From: pdbourke@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Paul David Bourke)
Subject: wireframe from Radiance
To: GJWard@lbl.gov (GJWard@Lbl.GOV)
I've uploaded a little something which may be of interest to some people,
who knows. The following is the README file in the tar archive wireframe.tar
located in the xfer directory. You can decide where it should go if anywhere.
Creating wireframe hiddenline images with Radiance
One problem we have encountered is that if we create a model "by hand"
with Radiance (as opposed to using a 3D modelling package and then a
translator) then we are often disappointed that there is no way of
creating a wireframe hiddenline version, plans, elevations, perspectives etc.
After a little playing I have found a way of doing this, the procedure is
explained below.
1) xform -e the model so that you have a file consisting only of
Radiance primitives.
2) Run the short (and messy) program supplied with this archive. It
creates a new Radiance file where each primitive has a separate
colour (color for the US) and there are no light sources, textures, etc.
3) Render the model as usual with typically high values of ambient light,
0.5 say. The image should also be rendered to a large size bitmap. This
will result in an image with flat shading on each primitive, and each
one will be a different colour. In other words there is a transition
or edge between each primitive.
4) Run some edge detection over the resulting image. We use PhotoShops
"find edges"
5) Convert to grey scale, possibly invert and adjust the levels of the
image (depends on the edge detection used) and then when a suitably
high contrast image is obtained convert to a black and white bitmap.
I have enclosed
wirerad.c source to colour primitives
bill.rad example scene
wire.rad output of bill.rad after colourization
wire.tif run this for image generation
wire.tif example wireframe image from above example
Oh well, it was fun and someone else may find it useful.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Bourke School of Architecture, Property, Planning
pdbourke@ccu1.auckland.ac.nz The University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Ph: +64 -9 373 7999 x7367 Auckland
Fax: +64 -9 373 7410 New Zealand
===============================================================
SHARED IMAGES
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 16:29:31 -0800
From: greg@pink.lbl.gov (Gregory J. Ward)
To: greg@hobbes
Subject: New images for archive
===========================================
= =
= Images Created by the ECADAP Group, =
= De Montfort University, UK, =
= Using the RADIANCE Synthetic =
= Imaging Software. =
= =
===========================================
The Scenes
----------
Visualisations of a low-energy urban
office scheme (following a detailed
daylighting analysis)
FOGGO_DOWN.pic : Outside view down
FOGGO_LIFT.pic : View to lifts
FOGGO_NITE.pic : Nightime view, using 'light' (main) and 'glow' (offices)
FOGGO_POOL.pic : "Fisheye" view up to lifts from just below water surface
FOGGO_UP1.pic : Main view of atrium
FOGGO_UP2.pic : Detail of main view
Design for daylit art gallery - rooflight design
with shading devices
GALLERY.pic : View to paintings
GALLERY_LUX.pic : Illuminance map of view
Hi-tech atrium building
ROPE_ATRIUM.pic : Main view of atrium
ROPE_OFFICE.pic : Office adjacent to atrium
Scene loosely modelled on Vancoover Law Courts atrium
VANC_DAY.pic : Sunny day
VANC_NITE.pic : Nightime with lights
Images are copyright ECADAP, De Montfort University, UK. They must not be
used for any publication etc. without prior authorisation.
No CAD modeller was used for any of the scenes.
J. Mardaljevic greatfully acknowledges the excellent support provided
by Greg Ward in helping to understand RADIANCE and to use it to the best effect.
Address any queries etc. to John Mardaljevic.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Environmental Computer Aided Design And Performance - ECADAP
---------------------------------------------------------------------
John Mardaljevic ECADAP Group E-mail(int): edu@dmu.ac.uk
School of the Built Environment E-mail (UK): edu@uk.ac.dmu
De Montfort University
The Gateway Tel: +44-533-577417
Leicester LE1 9BH U.K. Fax: +44-533-577440
---------------------------------------------------------------------
==========================================================
SENSITIVITY RUNS
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 08:50:59 -0800
From: "(Raphael Compagnon)"
To: greg@hobbes.lbl.gov
Subject: Sensitivity analysis
Hello Greg !
I did some sensitivity analysis on the ambiant calculation parameters.
Here are some first results :
The goal of this sensitivity analysis is to give some help
how good intereflection calculation can be performed by Radiance
without spending an enormous CPU time.
The idea is to perform many simulations of the same scene with
different values for the parameters controlling the ambiant
calculation. Then all resulting pictures are compared to a
"reference picture". Then the effect of each parameters can be
estimated.
The scene that has been used is a closed room with a small window
in the center of the ceiling. (it is exactly the same scene proposed
by H. Rushmeyer that made some inter-program comparison last december)
The reference picture is the final picture received from H. Rushmeyer:
it is in fact a mean picture calculated from results of at least 3 different
programs. The good accordance between the results of those 3 programs
insure that the "mean picture" is a good estimate of the "reality".
Each picture that has been computed during this study has been compared
to the refernece picture by calculating its root mean square difference.
RMS = sqrt( Sum_on_all_pixels( (Picture_pixel(i) - Ref_pixel(i))^2 )/Npixels )
RMS is then a measure of the accuracy of the calculated picture compared
to the reference picture.
The parameters that have been tested are the following (with their minimal
and maximal values):
parameter Level - Level +
-aa 0.2 0.1
-ar 32 64
-ad 256 512
-as 128 256
-ab 1 2
-av 0.0169 0
All combinations of the two levels (-;+) of these six parameters have
been computed using a factorial scheme 2^6 resulting in 64 simulations.
>From the results of these simulations the following conclusions can be
stated:
The far most sensitive parameter affecting the accuracy
is the ambiant bounce number (-ab)
The secondary most affecting parameters is the -av values.
All the others parameters don't affect significantly the accuracy !
The CPU time needed for computing the picture is proportional to the
number of rays traced for each simulation. This number of rays is
very sensitive to the value of the -ab and -aa parameters and is
also sensitive to the value of the -ad parameter. Those sensitive
parameters show also strong interactions between them: that means
that setting two of those parameters at their upper level will
increase the CPU time far more than just setting on of this
parameter to its upper level.
The three other parameters (-ar -as and -av) don't influence strongly the number
of traced rays.
Considering this we can see that good results can be archieved
by increasing -ab from 1 to 2 but by fixing -aa and -ad to their lower
levels so that the cpu time don't increase to much. A good estimate of
the ambiant value -av is also something that will provide accuracy without
increasing the cpu time but this estimate can not easily be found...
Those conclusions are valid for this specific scene and for parameters
lying in the same lower and upper levels that have been used for this
sensitivity analysis !
I must still insure that the conclusions I explained here are still valid
for other scenes...
I hope this first trial will help to find out some kind of "rules"
to define best values for the ambiant parameters!
Tell me if you have a better idea to compare the accuracy of one picture against
a reference picture.
Bye !
Raphael
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 15:46:55 PST
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: compag@lesosun2.epfl.ch
Subject: Re: Sensitivity analysis
Hi Raphael,
Your sensitivity analysis is interesting. I will publish them in the
Radiance user's digest, with your permission. Unfortunately, I have
some doubts that the results will extend to other environments. I
have found the setting of these parameters to be something of an art,
and the lower values certainly do not work in all cases. It would
be very interesting, and very difficult, to determine just when they
were needed. I am thinking that there should be an "oracle" program
that could examine the input files and the octree and so on and make
a recommendation for viewpoints, parameter settings, etc.
-Greg
[This was the first germ of the idea for "rad"]
================================================================
USING BRDF DATA
From: sick@ise.fhg.de
Subject: Re: Question concerning BRTDfunc's
To: greg@hobbes.lbl.gov (gregory ward)
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 8:30:55 MEZ
Hi Greg,
thanks for your examples - they help. But as you assumed I have some questions
still. I believe I could most easily work with the data, eg transdata
material types. I do not see, however, so far the relationship between
the datafile and the functions eg in your reflector example. In order to
understand, it would be probably sufficient for me to know the meaning
of the data in the sae_refl.dat file. I could then figure out the rest.
How can I relate to the direction of the incident light? There is no pre-
defined vector in rayinit.cal, is there? I read x,y,z in some places, but
they seem to be general variables.
What exactly are coordinate inices and coordinate index functions?
I hope I do not take too much of your time. As feedback for you: There are more
and more people working with RADIANCE here in teh department. And the more
we find out about it and its proper use the better. I was just recently
invited to give a talk and paper (for publication in a little book) on
daylighting simulations. Ans as you can guess: RADIANCE and examples calculated
using it will make up the major part of the talk. So there is spreading of
the information.
Best regards,
Fred
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friedrich Sick MAIL : Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems
Oltmannsstr. 22
D 7800 Freiburg, West Germany
PHONE: +49 (761) 4014 133 FAX: +49 (761) 4014 132
EMAIL: sick@ise.fhg.de
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** NOTE: NEW FAX NUMBER: +49 (761) 4014 132 ***
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 09:06:12 PST
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: sick@ise.fhg.de
Subject: Re: Question concerning BRTDfunc's
Hi Fred,
OK, working just with the reflector example, we defined sae_red thusly:
void metdata sae_red
5 sae_refl sae_refl.dat reflector.cal sae_theta sae_phi
0
5 1 .01 .01 .9 .00258
The first string argument above is a function that modifies the data value
in the file (correcting for the projected area of the object in this case).
The fourth and fifth string arguments are functions that for a given
(normalized) source ray direction, compute WHICH VALUES to look up in the
data file. This is a bit of a peculiar example, because we happen to have
data that gives reflectance as a function of the angle to the surface normal
(in degrees) and the angle between the reflected ray direction and the
source incident direction. Observe the definitions for these functions
given in reflector.cal:
{ entrance angle (source to normal) }
sae_theta(x,y,z) = acos(x*Nx+y*Ny+z*Nz)*180/PI;
{ observation angle (view to source) }
sae_phi(x,y,z) = acos(-(x*Dx+y*Dy+z*Dz))*180/PI;
Again, the x,y,z parameters to these functions, as supplied by the Radiance
renderer, are the normalized source ray direction. In sae_theta, this
vector is used in a dot-product against the surface normal (Nx,Ny,Nz) to
compute the polar angle. In sae_phi, a dot product with the incident
ray direction (Dx,Dy,Dz) (directed always towards the surface) to compute
the "observation angle" (ie. the angle between source ray and incident ray).
These two angles are then used in order to lookup values in the following
data file (sae_refl.dat):
2
0 20 3
.2 1.5 2
1.67 .026
1.12 .019
.558 .011
The first number (2) is the dimensionality of the data. The second line
gives the beginning and ending coordinate index of the data's first dimension
and the number of points in that dimension, 0 to 20 degrees with 3 points
(ie. 0, 10 and 20 degree points). The second line gives the same information
for the second dimension (ie. .2 and 1.5 degree points). The total number
of points must equal the product of each dimensions cardinality, 2*3 == 6.
The ordering of the following data points is such that the last dimension
is being run through the fastest, ie.
1.67 .026 corresponds to (theta,phi) of (0,.2) and (0,1.5)
1.12 .019 corresponds to (theta,phi) of (10,.2) and (10,1.5)
.558 .011 corresponds to (theta,phi) of (20,.2) and (20,1.5)
Any values between these points is interpolated using a simple multi-
dimensional linear interpolant. Data outside the given domain is computed
with using linear extrapolation for a distance less than or equal to the
distance between adjacent values, and falls off harmonically to zero outside
that range. Thus, phi values up to 30 are extrapolated, and beyond that
they fall off to zero.
I hope this is clear enough. I regret that it has never been adequately
documented. Perhaps one day we will get the funds we need to do a proper
job of documenting the system. Until then, only the most adventurous
users (like you) will ever attempt to use some of Radiance's more advanced
features.
-Greg
==================================================================
IES SOURCES
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 17:40:38 +1300
From: Architecture Students
To: greg@hobbes.lbl.gov
Subject: ies2rad output values
Greg,
Hi, I'm currently using the lighting simulation side of radiance to predict
actual light levels in buildings that are not yet built. I have been having
some problems with the modelling of luminaires from the ies library that you
may be able to shed some light on. The area that is causing me trouble is
matching the lumen output from ies2rad to realistic levels (or that which can
be expected from a hand calculation).
I have set up a test room of dimensions 6 x 6 x 3.5m and tried various
configurations of light fittings from a single luminaire through to an array
of nine fittings and measured the output. The luminance values gained by
pressing 'l' when viewing through ximage seem to be consistently low when
compared to expected values. The lumen output of ies2rad can of course be
increased by using the -m option so that the levels in the test room match the
expected value arrived at through a manual calculation, but to do this for
every fitting in the ies library would require more than a little work. My
question is, is it reasonable to expect ies2rad to produce realistic lumen
output without being 'fiddled' or was it intended that every fitting would
require 'manual calibration'?
As a result of running several light fittings from the ies library through
this calibration procedure it seems there may be a relation between the
expected lumen output of the lamp and the value of the multiplication factor
-m used in ies2rad. If the expected lumen output of a luminaire (obtained from
a table in the ies handbook) is divided by 570 it gives you a ball park figure
for -m. For example luminaire no. ies25 which has two fluorescent bulbs each
with an initial lumen output of 2770 lumens (cool white), has a total output
of 5540. 5540/570 gives you 9.7, and using -m 10 in ies2rad gives you near
realistic luminance values. As I'm not a programmer but just a humble user,
I don't know if there is an obvious mathematical routine in ies2rad that
explains this.
Another question I have is regarding rpict's. I rendered tests with 5
different light fittings in the test room, 2 incandescent (ies01 and ies03),
and 3 fluorescent (ies25, ies30 and ies41). All used the same oconv and rpict
parameters but the images with ies01 as the light source are extremely patchy,
a bit like a disco floor! Do you have any idea about what causes this or how
it is remedied? I think it maybe the -ar setting in rpict, but why would it be
so different for two luminaires that are very similar (ies01 and ies03).
I have included 2 pic files (compressed format) that illustrate this,
test_ies01_9.pic has a 3x3 array of ies01 luminaires as the light source,
test_ies03_9.pic has a 3x3 array of ies03 fittings. The image is a view from
just below the ceiling looking directly at the centre point of the floor (so
the lights are behind the viewpoint ie. out of sight).
Grateful for any comments or suggestions,
thanks,
Nick Warring
Victoria University of Wellington
School of Architecture
New Zealand
studs@arch.vuw.ac.nz
PS. I hope this isn't too big for your mailbox.
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 15:08:02 PST
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: studs@arch.vuw.ac.nz
Subject: Re: ies2rad output values
Hello Nick,
I'm glad to hear that you're using Radiance for its intended purpose. I'm
sorry you've been getting unexpected results!
The problem seems to be with the IES luminaire data files themselves.
I took a closer look at the files, and noticed that the tables they were
taken from give output in terms of candelas per 1000 lumens. Since the
IES data files are exact replicas of these tables, one must multipy their
values by the expected lumen output of the fixture over 1000. For example,
if luminaire ies25 were expected to have a total output of 4800 lumens,
you would use -m 4.8 for ies2rad to give the correct absolute levels.
>From what you have said, this would still seem to leave a factor of two
unaccounted for, but I have checked the results and they seem to work for
me. Are you remembering to account for the reflectance of the surface
in your hand calculation of luminance?
Your second problem with splotchiness in your output is due to the way
ies2rad generates certain fixture geometries. Ies01 in particular is
a (spherical) pendant fixture. According to the IES specification, this
fixture should be represented as an actual sphere. Unfortunately, the
standard data file actually gives a cubical geometry for this fixture,
and ies2rad interprets it thusly. The top and bottom faces are modeled
as emitters, and the four side faces are modeled as glowing but otherwise
passive surfaces. (This preserves the far field output distribution
while minimizing the number of light sources and the associated
calculation cost.) Due to how Radiance computes interreflection, the
side faces do end up contributing to the illumination of the space, even
though they should not. This is really a bug, and though I was aware of
it before, I didn't realize it could cause such serious artifacts. I will
fix it for the next release.
The best fix is to change the ies01 file so it will correctly generate a
spherical geometry. Alter the first line after TILT=none to read:
1 1000. 1.0 21 1 1 1 -1.00 0 0
The -1 is the funky IES way to specify a sphere.
Good luck!
-Greg
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 12:43:58 -0500
From: srouten@rubidium.service.indiana.edu
To: greg@hobbes.lbl.gov
Dear Greg,
Reuben and I are pulling our hair out. We are trying to understand
primitives for generating accurate luminaires, but neither of us has a
background in engineering or physics! We have a copy of the IES Handbook
but the terminology is arcane to us.
Can you help us navigate an example?
If so, ies01.rad is a good starting place:
1) in the header, I see '0 watt luminaire' which seems to imply that an
argument within the file can be changed to correspond with 'n' watts.
If so, is this argument related to 'lamp*ballast factor = 1'. In
past experiments I remember changing the last argument to the brightdata
primitive from 1 to a higher number and altering the overall brightness
of the luminaire, but I have no idea what effect i was causing relative
to watts, lumens, or footcandles.
2) In the light primitive, this luminaire has an rgb radiance of 10.7693
given in Watts/sr/m^2? Our main difficulty is understanding the units
in which light is specified in Radiance.
3) Why is the geometry of ies01 specified in rectangular polygons when the
actual luminaire is a spherical pendant?
4) Once we figure this out we are interested in modelling some obscure lights,
like a flashing highway barricade, or perhaps even some imaginary ones.
Since IES data files aren't available for imaginary lights, can we rely
on Radiance to produce accurate distributions if we create the geometry of
the fixture in great detail?
We've been over what we think is all of Radiance's documentation,
including the digests, so we're only bugging you as a last resort. Hope you
dont mind.
-Scott
ps. I put another of our pictures in xfer. Its a project for an
architectural competition. Its called glass.pic.
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 11:46:28 PDT
From: greg (Gregory J. Ward)
To: srouten@rubidium.service.indiana.edu
Subject: light sources
Dear Scott and Reuben,
Light sources are tricky buggers, and none too easy to understand in Radiance.
For starters, you should realize that the IES example luminaire files are
VERY bad examples. Many of the fields (such as #watts) are carelessly done
or just plain wrong, and the files are mostly for testing input procedures,
not for lighting simulation.
The units generally used for light quantities in Radiance are watts/sr/m^2,
and they are spectrally-dependent. Therefore, an incandescent fixture will
have different quantities of red, green and blue compared to a fluorescent
fixture with the same total output (ie. lumens). You can use the program
"lampcolor" to do some simple calculations along those lines. The relationship
between watts, lumens and radiance is difficult to grasp not only due to the
dependence on efficacy and color, but also due to geometry. The total output
of a light source cannot be determined in Radiance without considering the
emitting area as well. I really don't want to go into detail, since I often
get confused myself.
I don't recommend using Radiance to compute light output distributions from
fancy luminaire geometry. It is bound to be inaccurate. I hope someday to
work on a tool for this purpose, but Radiance is not it.
-Greg
P.S. I took a look at your picture. It's quite nice, but I'm not sure what
exactly I'm looking at.
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