| 1 | RCSid "$Id: README.txt,v 1.6 2018/10/09 17:57:17 greg Exp $" | 
| 2 |  | 
| 3 | Hello and welcome to the Radiance synthetic imaging system.  This is | 
| 4 | the twenty-fifth release, Version 5.4, and it includes all source files | 
| 5 | for local compilation with a standard C compiler.  To find out what's | 
| 6 | new in this release, check the text file "doc/notes/ReleaseNotes". | 
| 7 |  | 
| 8 | Radiance is OpenSource software copyrighted and distributed by | 
| 9 | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.  By downloading | 
| 10 | and installing this software, you are implicitly agreeing to the | 
| 11 | OpenSource license appended to this README file.  Please read it | 
| 12 | carefully before proceeding -- this is very different from previous | 
| 13 | licenses, and contains fewer restrictions on commercialization. | 
| 14 |  | 
| 15 | Please read this entire file before sending e-mail asking | 
| 16 | how to install this software or what to do with it.  Some | 
| 17 | frequently asked questions are answered here and also on our | 
| 18 | website at: | 
| 19 |  | 
| 20 | http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/ | 
| 21 |  | 
| 22 | The CVS source tree is available, including post-release bug-fixes and | 
| 23 | mailing lists access at: | 
| 24 |  | 
| 25 | http://www.radiance-online.org/ | 
| 26 |  | 
| 27 | The websites above should also have some precompiled Radiance binaries | 
| 28 | and add-ons for common Unix platforms. | 
| 29 |  | 
| 30 | We have attempted to make it easy for you (and for us) to install | 
| 31 | the software on differently configured systems using a global make | 
| 32 | script.  To install the software, just type: | 
| 33 |  | 
| 34 | ./makeall install | 
| 35 |  | 
| 36 | You can clean up the .o files and so forth with: | 
| 37 |  | 
| 38 | ./makeall clean | 
| 39 |  | 
| 40 | Or, if you are confident you can do both at the same time with: | 
| 41 |  | 
| 42 | ./makeall install clean | 
| 43 |  | 
| 44 | You can give other make options at the end of the command as well.  For | 
| 45 | example, the -n option will tell you what makeall is going to do without | 
| 46 | actually doing it. | 
| 47 |  | 
| 48 | If you downloaded the binaries, so compilation is not necessary, | 
| 49 | run the following command to install the library files only: | 
| 50 |  | 
| 51 | ./makeall library | 
| 52 |  | 
| 53 | The makeall may script ask you questions about your system and where you | 
| 54 | want to install the executables and library files.  The pathnames you | 
| 55 | give should be relative to root for the programs to work properly.  You | 
| 56 | may also use the tilde ('~') character to give paths starting with | 
| 57 | someone's home directory. | 
| 58 |  | 
| 59 | If you do NOT have X11 support, please read the note "noX11.help" in | 
| 60 | this directory.  It explains what to change to make things work. | 
| 61 |  | 
| 62 | Although it is set automatically by makeall, individuals may want to | 
| 63 | set the RAYPATH environment variable manually.  This variable tells | 
| 64 | Radiance where to look for auxiliary files, and usually includes the | 
| 65 | current directory as well as the system library (ray/lib in this | 
| 66 | distribution).  As you develop auxiliary files yourself, it is often | 
| 67 | useful to add in your own library directory before the system directory. | 
| 68 | An example setting such as this would go in a user's .login file: | 
| 69 |  | 
| 70 | setenv RAYPATH .:${HOME}/mylib:/usr/local/lib/ray | 
| 71 |  | 
| 72 | After installing the software, you may want to start by scanning the | 
| 73 | troff input documentation contained in "doc/ray.1", which is also formatted | 
| 74 | for web browsers in "doc/ray.html". | 
| 75 | A PDF version of this manual may be found in | 
| 76 | "doc/pdf/ray.pdf", along with an older tutorial by Cindy Larson, | 
| 77 | "doc/pdf/raduser1_6.pdf". | 
| 78 |  | 
| 79 | For complete documentation on the system as of release 3.1, refer to | 
| 80 | "Rendering with Radiance" by Larson and Shakespeare, which used to be | 
| 81 | available from Morgan Kauffman Publishing.  Recently, the authors have | 
| 82 | taken over printing of the book, which is now available from booksurge.com. | 
| 83 | You may find it linked to the Radiance website page: | 
| 84 |  | 
| 85 | http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/book/ | 
| 86 |  | 
| 87 | The first chapter of this book, which includes a basic tutorial and | 
| 88 | serves as a good introduction for new users, may be found in | 
| 89 | "doc/pdf/RwR01.pdf". | 
| 90 |  | 
| 91 | Important additions since version 3.1 include the holodeck programs (rholo, | 
| 92 | etc., built in src/hd), glrad, ranimove, the new "mesh" primitive, | 
| 93 | and rtcontrib.  Again, check doc/notes/ReleaseNotes for details. | 
| 94 |  | 
| 95 | Individual manual pages may be found in the subdirectory "doc/man". | 
| 96 | You may want to copy these to the system manual directory, or add this | 
| 97 | directory to your MANPATH environment variable in your shell | 
| 98 | initialization file.  A good starting place is to print the text file | 
| 99 | ray/doc/man/whatis, which gives a one line description of each program in | 
| 100 | the Radiance package.  To print out the manual pages, use the "-man" | 
| 101 | macro package. | 
| 102 |  | 
| 103 | The most important program to learn about if you are a new user of Radiance | 
| 104 | (or have not used this program before) is "rad".  It controls Radiance | 
| 105 | lighting parameters, and automates much of the rendering process. | 
| 106 | To get started, change directory to obj/misc and try running: | 
| 107 |  | 
| 108 | % rad -o x11 daf.rif | 
| 109 |  | 
| 110 | This works if you are running X11.  If you are not, you can still generate | 
| 111 | an image with: | 
| 112 |  | 
| 113 | % rad daf.rif & | 
| 114 |  | 
| 115 | When the picture is done, you can convert it to another format for display | 
| 116 | with any of the ra_* programs listed in the doc/whatis database. | 
| 117 |  | 
| 118 | There is a user interface built on top of this using Tcl/Tk, called trad. | 
| 119 | If you do not have Tcl/Tk installed on your system, you must do so prior | 
| 120 | to building this distribution if you want trad to install.  (Try a google | 
| 121 | search on "Tcl/Tk" or go to "http://www.scriptics.com/software/tcltk/".) |