Radiance mkillum program
MKILLUM(1) MKILLUM(1)
NAME
mkillum - compute illum sources for a RADIANCE scene
SYNOPSIS
mkillum [ -n nprocs ][ rtrace options ] octree [ < file .. ]
mkillum [ rtrace options ] -defaults
DESCRIPTION
Mkillum takes a prepared RADIANCE scene description and an octree and
computes light source distributions for each surface, replacing them
with secondary sources whose contributions can be computed more effi-
ciently by rpict(1) and rvu(1). This type of optimization is most use-
ful for windows and skylights which represent concentrated sources of
indirect illumination. Mkillum is not appropriate for very large
sources or sources with highly directional distributions. These are
best handled respectively by the ambient calculation and the secondary
source types in RADIANCE.
If the -n option is specified with a value greater than 1, multiple
rtrace(1) processes will be used to accelerate computation on a shared
memory machine. Note that there is no benefit to using more processes
than there are local CPUs available to do the work.
Remaining arguments to mkillum are passed directly to rtrace(1), which
is used to compute the light distributions for the input surfaces.
These surfaces can be any combination of polygons, spheres and rings.
Other surfaces may be included, but mkillum cannot compute their dis-
tributions.
By default, mkillum reads from its standard input and writes to its
standard output. It is possible to specify multiple input files in a
somewhat unconventional fashion by placing a lesser-than symbol ('<')
before the file names. (Note that this character must be escaped from
most shells.) This is necessary so mkillum can tell where the argu-
ments to rtrace(1) end and its own input files begin.
VARIABLES
Mkillum has a number of parameters that can be changed by comments in
the input file of the form:
#@mkillum variable=value option switch{+|-} ..
String or integer variables are separated from their values by the
equals sign ('='). Options appear by themselves. Switches are fol-
lowed either by a plus sign to turn them on or a minus sign to turn
them off.
Parameters are usually changed many times within the same input file to
tailor the calculation, specify different labels and so on. The param-
eters and their meanings are described below.
o=string Set the output file to string. All subsequent scene data
will be sent to this file. If this appears in the first com-
ment in the input, nothing will be sent to the standard out-
put. Note that this is not recommended when running mkillum
from rad(1), which expects the output to be on the standard
output.
m=string Set the material identifier to string. This name will be
used not only as the new surface modifier, but it will also
be used to name the distribution pattern and the data files.
The distribution name will be string plus the suffix ".dist".
The data file will be named string plus possibly an integer
plus a ".dat" suffix. The integer is used to avoid acci-
dently writing over an existing file. If overwriting the
file is desired, use the f variable below.
f=string Set the data file name to string. The next data file will be
given this name plus a ".dat" suffix. Subsequent files will
be named string plus an integer plus the ".dat" suffix. An
existing file with the same name will be clobbered. This
variable may be unset by leaving off the value. (See also
the m variable above.)
a Produce secondary sources for all of the surfaces in the
input. This is the default.
e=string Produce secondary sources for all surfaces except those modi-
fied by string. Surfaces modified by string will be passed
to the output unchanged.
i=string Only produce secondary sources for surfaces modified by
string.
n Do not produce any secondary sources. All input will be
passed to the output unaffected.
b=real Do not produce a secondary source for a surface if its aver-
age brightness (radiance) is less than the value real.
c={d|a|n} Use color information according to the given character. If
the character is d, then color information will be used in
three separate data files and the distribution will be fully
characterized in terms of color. If the character is a, then
only the average color is computed and the distribution will
not contain color information. If the character is n, even
the average distribution color will be thrown away, producing
secondary sources that are completely uncolored. This may be
desirable from a color-balancing point of view.
d=integer Set the number of direction samples per projected steradian
to integer. The number of directions stored in the associ-
ated data file will be approximately this number multiplied
by pi for polygons and rings, and by 4pi for spheres. If
integer is zero, then a diffuse source is assumed and no dis-
tribution is created.
s=integer Set the number of ray samples per direction to integer. This
variable affects the accuracy of the distribution value for
each direction as well as the computation time for mkillum.
l{+|-} Switch between light sources and illum sources. If this
switch is enabled (l+), mkillum will use the material type
"light" to represent surfaces. If disabled (l-), mkillum
will use the material type "illum" with the input surface
modifier as its alternate material. The default is l-.
EXAMPLES
The following command generates illum's corresponding to geometry in
the files "it1.rad" and "it2.rad":
mkillum -ab 2 -ad 1024 -av .1 .1 .1 basic.oct "<" it1.rad it2.rad >
illums.rad
The output file "illums.rad" would then be combined with the original
scene geometry to create a more easily rendered composite.
AUTHOR
Greg Ward
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Work on this program was initiated and sponsored by the LESO group at
EPFL in Switzerland.
SEE ALSO
oconv(1), rad(1), rpict(1), rtrace(1), rvu(1)
RADIANCE 10/6/95 MKILLUM(1)
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