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root/radiance/ray/doc/man/man1/mkillum.1
Revision: 1.1
Committed: Tue Mar 11 19:20:21 2003 UTC (21 years, 2 months ago) by greg
Branch: MAIN
CVS Tags: rad3R5
Log Message:
Added documentation to repository

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# Content
1 .\" RCSid "$Id"
2 .TH MKILLUM 1 10/6/95 RADIANCE
3 .SH NAME
4 mkillum - compute illum sources for a RADIANCE scene
5 .SH SYNOPSIS
6 .B mkillum
7 [
8 .B "rtrace options"
9 ]
10 .B octree
11 .B "[ \< file .. ]"
12 .br
13 .B "mkillum [ rtrace options ] \-defaults"
14 .SH DESCRIPTION
15 .I Mkillum
16 takes a prepared RADIANCE scene description and an octree and computes
17 light source distributions for each surface, replacing them with
18 secondary sources whose contributions can be computed more efficiently by
19 .I rpict(1)
20 and
21 .I rview(1).
22 This type of optimization is most useful for windows and skylights which
23 represent concentrated sources of indirect illumination.
24 .I Mkillum
25 is not appropriate for very large sources or sources with highly
26 directional distributions.
27 These are best handled respectively by the ambient calculation
28 and the secondary source types in RADIANCE.
29 .PP
30 The arguments to
31 .I mkillum
32 are passed directly to
33 .I rtrace(1),
34 which is used to compute the light distributions for the input surfaces.
35 These surfaces can be any combination of polygons, spheres and rings.
36 Other surfaces may be included, but
37 .I mkillum
38 cannot compute their distributions.
39 .PP
40 By default,
41 .I mkillum
42 reads from its standard input and writes to its standard output.
43 It is possible to specify multiple input files in a somewhat
44 unconventional fashion by placing a lesser-than symbol ('<') before
45 the file names.
46 (Note that this character must be escaped from most shells.)
47 This is necessary so
48 .I mkillum
49 can tell where the arguments to
50 .I rtrace(1)
51 end and its own input files begin.
52 .SH VARIABLES
53 .I Mkillum
54 has a number of parameters that can be changed by
55 comments in the input file of the form:
56 .nf
57
58 #@mkillum variable=value option switch{+|-} ..
59
60 .fi
61 String or integer variables are separated from their values by the
62 equals sign ('=').
63 Options appear by themselves.
64 Switches are followed either by a
65 plus sign to turn them on or a minus sign to turn them off.
66 .PP
67 Parameters are usually changed many times within the
68 same input file to tailor the calculation, specify different
69 labels and so on.
70 The parameters and their meanings are described below.
71 .TP 10n
72 .BI o =string
73 Set the output file to
74 .I string.
75 All subsequent scene data will be sent to this file.
76 If this appears in the first comment in the input, nothing will be
77 sent to the standard output.
78 Note that this is not recommended when running
79 .I mkillum
80 from
81 .I rad(1),
82 which expects the output to be on the standard output.
83 .TP
84 .BI m =string
85 Set the material identifier to
86 .I string.
87 This name will be used not only as the new surface modifier, but it
88 will also be used to name the distribution pattern and the data files.
89 The distribution name will be
90 .I string
91 plus the suffix ".dist".
92 The data file will be named
93 .I string
94 plus possibly an integer plus a ".dat" suffix.
95 The integer is used to avoid accidently writing over an existing
96 file.
97 If overwriting the file is desired, use the
98 .I f
99 variable below.
100 .TP
101 .BI f =string
102 Set the data file name to
103 .I string.
104 The next data file will be given this name plus a ".dat" suffix.
105 Subsequent files will be named
106 .I string
107 plus an integer plus the ".dat" suffix.
108 An existing file with the same name will be clobbered.
109 This variable may be unset by leaving off the value.
110 (See also the
111 .I m
112 variable above.)
113 .TP
114 .BR a
115 Produce secondary sources for all of the surfaces in the input.
116 This is the default.
117 .TP
118 .BI e =string
119 Produce secondary sources for all surfaces except those modified by
120 .I string.
121 Surfaces modified by
122 .I string
123 will be passed to the output unchanged.
124 .TP
125 .BI i =string
126 Only produce secondary sources for surfaces modified by
127 .I string.
128 .TP
129 .BR n
130 Do not produce any secondary sources.
131 All input will be passed to the output unaffected.
132 .TP
133 .BI b =real
134 Do not produce a secondary source for a surface if its average
135 brightness (radiance) is less than the value
136 .I real.
137 .TP
138 .BI c ={d|a|n}
139 Use color information according to the given character.
140 If the character is
141 .I d,
142 then color information will be used in three separate data files and
143 the distribution will be fully characterized in terms of color.
144 If the character is
145 .I a,
146 then only the average color is computed and the distribution will
147 not contain color information.
148 If the character is
149 .I n,
150 even the average distribution color will be thrown away,
151 producing secondary sources that are completely uncolored.
152 This may be desirable from a color-balancing point of view.
153 .TP
154 .BI d =integer
155 Set the number of direction samples per projected steradian to
156 .I integer.
157 The number of directions stored in the associated data file will be
158 approximately this number multiplied by pi for polygons and rings, and
159 by 4pi for spheres.
160 If
161 .I integer
162 is zero, then a diffuse source is assumed and no distribution is
163 created.
164 .TP
165 .BI s =integer
166 Set the number of ray samples per direction to
167 .I integer.
168 This variable affects the accuracy of the distribution value for
169 each direction as well as the computation time for
170 .I mkillum.
171 .TP
172 .BR l{+|-}
173 Switch between light sources and illum sources.
174 If this switch is enabled
175 .I (l+),
176 .I mkillum
177 will use the material type "light" to represent surfaces.
178 If disabled
179 .I (l-),
180 .I mkillum
181 will use the material type "illum" with the input surface modifier
182 as its alternate material.
183 The default is
184 .I l-.
185 .SH AUTHOR
186 Greg Ward
187 .SH ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
188 Work on this program was initiated and sponsored by the LESO
189 group at EPFL in Switzerland.
190 .SH "SEE ALSO"
191 oconv(1), rad(1), rpict(1), rtrace(1), rview(1)