man/man1/rcontrib.1

.\" RCSid "$Id: rcontrib.1,v 1.5 2012/06/14 22:51:04 greg Exp $"
.TH RCONTRIB 1 5/25/05 RADIANCE
.SH NAME
rcontrib - compute contribution coefficients in a RADIANCE scene
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B rcontrib
[
.B "\-n nprocs"
][
.B \-V
][
.B "\-c count"
][
.B \-fo
|
.B \-r
][
.B "\-e expr"
][
.B "\-f source"
][
.B "\-o ospec"
][
.B "\-b binv"
][
.B "\-bn nbins"
]
{
.B "\-m mod | \-M file"
}
..
[
.B $EVAR
]
[
.B @file
]
[
rtrace options
]
.B octree
.br
.B "rcontrib [ options ] \-defaults"
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Rcontrib
computes ray coefficients
for objects whose modifiers are named in one or more
.I \-m
settings.
These modifiers are usually materials associated with
light sources or sky domes, and must directly modify some geometric
primitives to be considered in the output.
A modifier list may also be read from a file using the
.I \-M
option.
The RAYPATH environment variable determines directories to search for
this file.
(No search takes place if a file name begins with a '.', '/' or '~'
character.)\0
.PP
If the
.I \-n
option is specified with a value greater than 1, multiple
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, and the
.I rcontrib
process itself may use a considerable amount of CPU time.
.PP
By setting the boolean
.I \-V
option, you may instruct
.I rcontrib
to report the contribution from each material rather than the ray
coefficient.
This is particularly useful for light sources with directional output
distributions, whose value would otherwise be lost in the shuffle.
With the default
.I -V-
setting, the output of rcontrib is a coefficient that must be multiplied
by the radiance of each material to arrive at a final contribution.
This is more convenient for computing daylight coefficeints, or cases
where the actual radiance is not desired.
Use the
.I -V+
setting when you wish to simply sum together contributions
(with possible adjustment factors) to obtain a final radiance value.
Combined with the
.I \-i
or
.I \-I
option, irradiance contributions are reported by
.I \-V+
rather than radiance, and 
.I \-V-
coefficients contain an additonal factor of PI.
.PP
The
.I \-c
option tells
.I rcontrib
how many rays to accumulate for each record.
The default value is one, meaning a full record will be produced for
each input ray.
For values greater than one, contributions will be averaged together
over the given number of input rays.
If set to zero, only a single record will be produced at the very
end, corresponding to the sum of all rays given on the input
(rather than the average).
This is equivalent to passing all the output records through a program like
.I total(1)
to sum RGB values together, but is much more efficient.
Using this option, it is possible to reverse sampling, sending rays from
a parallel source such as the sun to a diffuse surface, for example.
Note that output flushing via zero-direction rays is disabled with
.I \-c
set to zero.
.PP
The output of
.I rcontrib
has many potential uses.
Source contributions can be used as components in linear combination to
reproduce any desired variation, e.g., simulating lighting controls or
changing sky conditions via daylight coefficients.
More generally,
.I rcontrib
can be used to compute arbitrary input-output relationships in optical
systems, such as luminaires, light pipes, and shading devices.
.PP
.I Rcontrib
sends the accumulated rays tallies
to one or more destinations according to the given
.I \-o
specification.
If a destination begins with an exclamation mark ('!'), then
a pipe is opened to a command and data is sent to its standard input.
Otherwise, the destination is treated as a file.
An existing file of the same name will not be clobbered, unless the
.I \-fo
option is given.
If instead the
.I \-r
option is specified, data recovery is attempted on existing files.
(If 
.I "\-c 0"
is used together with the
.I \-r
option, existing files are read in and new ray evaluations are added
to the previous results, providing a convenient means for
progressive simulation.)\0
If an output specification contains a "%s" format, this will be
replaced by the modifier name.
The
.I \-b
option may be used to further define
a "bin number" within each object if finer resolution is needed, and
this will be applied to a "%d" format in the output file
specification if present.
The actual bin number is computed at run time based on ray direction
and surface intersection, as described below.
The number of bins must be specified in advance with the
.I \-bn
option, and this is critical for output files containing multiple values
per record.
A variable or constant name may be given for this parameter if
it has been defined via a previous
.I \-f
or
.I \-e
option.
Since bin numbers start from zero, the bin count is always equal to
the last bin plus one.
Set the this value to zero if the bin count is unknown (the default).
The most recent
.I \-b,
.I \-bn
and
.I \-o
options to the left of each
.I \-m
setting are the ones used for that modifier.
The ordering of other options is unimportant, except for
.I \-x
and
.I \-y
if the
.I \-c
is zero, when they control the resolution string
produced in the corresponding output.
.PP
If a
.I \-b
expression is defined for a particular modifier,
the bin number will be evaluated at run time for each
ray contribution.
Specifically, each ray's world intersection point will be assigned to
the variables Px, Py, and Pz, and the normalized ray direction
will be assigned to Dx, Dy, and Dz.
These parameters may be combined with definitions given in
.I \-e
arguments and files read using the
.I \-f
option.
The computed bin value will be
rounded to the nearest whole number.
This mechanism allows the user to define precise regions or directions
they wish to accumulate, such as the Tregenza sky discretization,
which would be otherwise impossible to specify
as a set of RADIANCE primitives.
The rules and predefined functions available for these expressions are
described in the
.I rcalc(1)
man page.
Unlike
.I rcalc,
.I rcontrib
will search the RADIANCE library directories for each file given in a
.I \-f
option.
.PP
If no
.I \-o
specification is given, results are written on the standard output in order
of modifier (as given on the command line) then bin number.
Concatenated data is also sent to a single destination (i.e., an initial
.I \-o
specification without formatting strings).
If a "%s" format appears but no "%d" in the
.I \-o
specification, then each modifier will have its own output file, with
multiple values per record in the case of a non-zero
.I \-b
definition.
If a "%d" format appears but no "%s", then each bin will get its own
output file, with modifiers output in order in each record.
For text output, each RGB coefficient triple is separated by a tab,
with a newline at the end of each ray record.
For binary output formats, there is no such delimiter to mark
the end of each record.
.PP
Input and output format defaults to plain text, where each ray's
origin and direction (6 real values) are given on input,
and one line is produced per output file per ray.
Alternative data representations may be specified by the
.I \-f[io]
option, which is described in the
.I rtrace
man page along with the associated
.I \-x
and
.I \-y
resolution settings.
In particular, the color ('c') output data representation
together with positive dimensions for
.I \-x
and
.I \-y
will produce an uncompressed RADIANCE picture,
suitable for manipulation with
.I pcomb(1)
and related tools.
.PP
Options may be given on the command line and/or read from the
environment and/or read from a file.
A command argument beginning with a dollar sign ('$') is immediately
replaced by the contents of the given environment variable.
A command argument beginning with an at sign ('@') is immediately
replaced by the contents of the given file.
.SH EXAMPLES
To compute the proportional contributions from sources modified
by "light1" vs. "light2" on a set of illuminance values:
.IP "" .2i
rcontrib \-I+ @render.opt \-o c_%s.dat \-m light1 \-m light2 scene.oct < test.dat
.PP
To generate a pair of images corresponding to these two lights'
contributions:
.IP "" .2i
vwrays \-ff \-x 1024 \-y 1024 \-vf best.vf |
rcontrib \-ffc `vwrays \-d \-x 1024 \-y 1024 \-vf best.vf`
@render.opt \-o c_%s.hdr \-m light1 \-m light2 scene.oct
.PP
These images may then be recombined using the desired outputs
of light1 and light2:
.IP "" .2i
pcomb \-c 100 90 75 c_light1.hdr \-c 50 55 57 c_light2.hdr > combined.hdr
.PP
To compute an array of illuminance contributions according to a Tregenza sky:
.IP "" .2i
rcontrib \-I+ \-b tbin \-o sky.dat \-m skyglow \-b 0 \-o ground.dat \-m groundglow
@render.opt \-f tregenza.cal scene.oct < test.dat
.SH ENVIRONMENT
RAYPATH         path to search for \-f and \-M files
.SH AUTHOR
Greg Ward
.SH "SEE ALSO"
cnt(1), genklemsamp(1), getinfo(1), pcomb(1), pfilt(1), ra_rgbe(1),
rcalc(1), rpict(1), rsensor(1), rtrace(1), total(1), vwrays(1), ximage(1)
Revision:	1.6
Committed:	Thu Nov 15 19:41:03 2012 UTC (12 years, 6 months ago) by greg
Branch:	MAIN
Changes since 1.5:	+10 -9 lines
Log Message:	Tweaks and fixes related to flushing with -c >1
#	Content
1	.\" RCSid "$Id: rcontrib.1,v 1.5 2012/06/14 22:51:04 greg Exp $"
2	.TH RCONTRIB 1 5/25/05 RADIANCE
3	.SH NAME
4	rcontrib - compute contribution coefficients in a RADIANCE scene
5	.SH SYNOPSIS
6	.B rcontrib
7	[
8	.B "\-n nprocs"
9	][
10	.B \-V
11	][
12	.B "\-c count"
13	][
14	.B \-fo
15	\|
16	.B \-r
17	][
18	.B "\-e expr"
19	][
20	.B "\-f source"
21	][
22	.B "\-o ospec"
23	][
24	.B "\-b binv"
25	][
26	.B "\-bn nbins"
27	]
28	{
29	.B "\-m mod \| \-M file"
30	}
31	..
32	[
33	.B $EVAR
34	]
35	[
36	.B @file
37	]
38	[
39	rtrace options
40	]
41	.B octree
42	.br
43	.B "rcontrib [ options ] \-defaults"
44	.SH DESCRIPTION
45	.I Rcontrib
46	computes ray coefficients
47	for objects whose modifiers are named in one or more
48	.I \-m
49	settings.
50	These modifiers are usually materials associated with
51	light sources or sky domes, and must directly modify some geometric
52	primitives to be considered in the output.
53	A modifier list may also be read from a file using the
54	.I \-M
55	option.
56	The RAYPATH environment variable determines directories to search for
57	this file.
58	(No search takes place if a file name begins with a '.', '/' or '~'
59	character.)\0
60	.PP
61	If the
62	.I \-n
63	option is specified with a value greater than 1, multiple
64	processes will be used to accelerate computation on a shared
65	memory machine.
66	Note that there is no benefit to using more processes
67	than there are local CPUs available to do the work, and the
68	.I rcontrib
69	process itself may use a considerable amount of CPU time.
70	.PP
71	By setting the boolean
72	.I \-V
73	option, you may instruct
74	.I rcontrib
75	to report the contribution from each material rather than the ray
76	coefficient.
77	This is particularly useful for light sources with directional output
78	distributions, whose value would otherwise be lost in the shuffle.
79	With the default
80	.I -V-
81	setting, the output of rcontrib is a coefficient that must be multiplied
82	by the radiance of each material to arrive at a final contribution.
83	This is more convenient for computing daylight coefficeints, or cases
84	where the actual radiance is not desired.
85	Use the
86	.I -V+
87	setting when you wish to simply sum together contributions
88	(with possible adjustment factors) to obtain a final radiance value.
89	Combined with the
90	.I \-i
91	or
92	.I \-I
93	option, irradiance contributions are reported by
94	.I \-V+
95	rather than radiance, and
96	.I \-V-
97	coefficients contain an additonal factor of PI.
98	.PP
99	The
100	.I \-c
101	option tells
102	.I rcontrib
103	how many rays to accumulate for each record.
104	The default value is one, meaning a full record will be produced for
105	each input ray.
106	For values greater than one, contributions will be averaged together
107	over the given number of input rays.
108	If set to zero, only a single record will be produced at the very
109	end, corresponding to the sum of all rays given on the input
110	(rather than the average).
111	This is equivalent to passing all the output records through a program like
112	.I total(1)
113	to sum RGB values together, but is much more efficient.
114	Using this option, it is possible to reverse sampling, sending rays from
115	a parallel source such as the sun to a diffuse surface, for example.
116	Note that output flushing via zero-direction rays is disabled with
117	.I \-c
118	set to zero.
119	.PP
120	The output of
121	.I rcontrib
122	has many potential uses.
123	Source contributions can be used as components in linear combination to
124	reproduce any desired variation, e.g., simulating lighting controls or
125	changing sky conditions via daylight coefficients.
126	More generally,
127	.I rcontrib
128	can be used to compute arbitrary input-output relationships in optical
129	systems, such as luminaires, light pipes, and shading devices.
130	.PP
131	.I Rcontrib
132	sends the accumulated rays tallies
133	to one or more destinations according to the given
134	.I \-o
135	specification.
136	If a destination begins with an exclamation mark ('!'), then
137	a pipe is opened to a command and data is sent to its standard input.
138	Otherwise, the destination is treated as a file.
139	An existing file of the same name will not be clobbered, unless the
140	.I \-fo
141	option is given.
142	If instead the
143	.I \-r
144	option is specified, data recovery is attempted on existing files.
145	(If
146	.I "\-c 0"
147	is used together with the
148	.I \-r
149	option, existing files are read in and new ray evaluations are added
150	to the previous results, providing a convenient means for
151	progressive simulation.)\0
152	If an output specification contains a "%s" format, this will be
153	replaced by the modifier name.
154	The
155	.I \-b
156	option may be used to further define
157	a "bin number" within each object if finer resolution is needed, and
158	this will be applied to a "%d" format in the output file
159	specification if present.
160	The actual bin number is computed at run time based on ray direction
161	and surface intersection, as described below.
162	The number of bins must be specified in advance with the
163	.I \-bn
164	option, and this is critical for output files containing multiple values
165	per record.
166	A variable or constant name may be given for this parameter if
167	it has been defined via a previous
168	.I \-f
169	or
170	.I \-e
171	option.
172	Since bin numbers start from zero, the bin count is always equal to
173	the last bin plus one.
174	Set the this value to zero if the bin count is unknown (the default).
175	The most recent
176	.I \-b,
177	.I \-bn
178	and
179	.I \-o
180	options to the left of each
181	.I \-m
182	setting are the ones used for that modifier.
183	The ordering of other options is unimportant, except for
184	.I \-x
185	and
186	.I \-y
187	if the
188	.I \-c
189	is zero, when they control the resolution string
190	produced in the corresponding output.
191	.PP
192	If a
193	.I \-b
194	expression is defined for a particular modifier,
195	the bin number will be evaluated at run time for each
196	ray contribution.
197	Specifically, each ray's world intersection point will be assigned to
198	the variables Px, Py, and Pz, and the normalized ray direction
199	will be assigned to Dx, Dy, and Dz.
200	These parameters may be combined with definitions given in
201	.I \-e
202	arguments and files read using the
203	.I \-f
204	option.
205	The computed bin value will be
206	rounded to the nearest whole number.
207	This mechanism allows the user to define precise regions or directions
208	they wish to accumulate, such as the Tregenza sky discretization,
209	which would be otherwise impossible to specify
210	as a set of RADIANCE primitives.
211	The rules and predefined functions available for these expressions are
212	described in the
213	.I rcalc(1)
214	man page.
215	Unlike
216	.I rcalc,
217	.I rcontrib
218	will search the RADIANCE library directories for each file given in a
219	.I \-f
220	option.
221	.PP
222	If no
223	.I \-o
224	specification is given, results are written on the standard output in order
225	of modifier (as given on the command line) then bin number.
226	Concatenated data is also sent to a single destination (i.e., an initial
227	.I \-o
228	specification without formatting strings).
229	If a "%s" format appears but no "%d" in the
230	.I \-o
231	specification, then each modifier will have its own output file, with
232	multiple values per record in the case of a non-zero
233	.I \-b
234	definition.
235	If a "%d" format appears but no "%s", then each bin will get its own
236	output file, with modifiers output in order in each record.
237	For text output, each RGB coefficient triple is separated by a tab,
238	with a newline at the end of each ray record.
239	For binary output formats, there is no such delimiter to mark
240	the end of each record.
241	.PP
242	Input and output format defaults to plain text, where each ray's
243	origin and direction (6 real values) are given on input,
244	and one line is produced per output file per ray.
245	Alternative data representations may be specified by the
246	.I \-f[io]
247	option, which is described in the
248	.I rtrace
249	man page along with the associated
250	.I \-x
251	and
252	.I \-y
253	resolution settings.
254	In particular, the color ('c') output data representation
255	together with positive dimensions for
256	.I \-x
257	and
258	.I \-y
259	will produce an uncompressed RADIANCE picture,
260	suitable for manipulation with
261	.I pcomb(1)
262	and related tools.
263	.PP
264	Options may be given on the command line and/or read from the
265	environment and/or read from a file.
266	A command argument beginning with a dollar sign ('$') is immediately
267	replaced by the contents of the given environment variable.
268	A command argument beginning with an at sign ('@') is immediately
269	replaced by the contents of the given file.
270	.SH EXAMPLES
271	To compute the proportional contributions from sources modified
272	by "light1" vs. "light2" on a set of illuminance values:
273	.IP "" .2i
274	rcontrib \-I+ @render.opt \-o c_%s.dat \-m light1 \-m light2 scene.oct < test.dat
275	.PP
276	To generate a pair of images corresponding to these two lights'
277	contributions:
278	.IP "" .2i
279	vwrays \-ff \-x 1024 \-y 1024 \-vf best.vf \|
280	rcontrib \-ffc `vwrays \-d \-x 1024 \-y 1024 \-vf best.vf`
281	@render.opt \-o c_%s.hdr \-m light1 \-m light2 scene.oct
282	.PP
283	These images may then be recombined using the desired outputs
284	of light1 and light2:
285	.IP "" .2i
286	pcomb \-c 100 90 75 c_light1.hdr \-c 50 55 57 c_light2.hdr > combined.hdr
287	.PP
288	To compute an array of illuminance contributions according to a Tregenza sky:
289	.IP "" .2i
290	rcontrib \-I+ \-b tbin \-o sky.dat \-m skyglow \-b 0 \-o ground.dat \-m groundglow
291	@render.opt \-f tregenza.cal scene.oct < test.dat
292	.SH ENVIRONMENT
293	RAYPATH path to search for \-f and \-M files
294	.SH AUTHOR
295	Greg Ward
296	.SH "SEE ALSO"
297	cnt(1), genklemsamp(1), getinfo(1), pcomb(1), pfilt(1), ra_rgbe(1),
298	rcalc(1), rpict(1), rsensor(1), rtrace(1), total(1), vwrays(1), ximage(1)