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Revision: 1.28
Committed: Wed Oct 19 21:25:20 2022 UTC (2 years, 6 months ago) by greg
Branch: MAIN
CVS Tags: rad5R4
Changes since 1.27: +18 -1 lines
Log Message:
feat(rpict,rtrace,rcontrib): Added -features option to check for method support

File Contents

# User Rev Content
1 greg 1.28 .\" RCSid "$Id: rpict.1,v 1.27 2022/10/19 18:23:14 greg Exp $"
2 greg 1.1 .TH RPICT 1 2/26/99 RADIANCE
3     .SH NAME
4     rpict - generate a RADIANCE picture
5     .SH SYNOPSIS
6     .B rpict
7     [
8     .B options
9     ]
10     [
11     .B $EVAR
12     ]
13     [
14     .B @file
15     ]
16     [
17     .B octree
18     ]
19     .br
20     .B "rpict [ options ] \-defaults"
21 greg 1.28 .br
22     .B "rpict \-features [feat1 ..]"
23 greg 1.1 .SH DESCRIPTION
24     .I Rpict
25     generates a picture from the RADIANCE scene given in
26     .I octree
27     and sends it to the standard output.
28     If no
29     .I octree
30     is given, the standard input is read.
31     (The octree may also be specified as the output of a command
32     enclosed in quotes and preceded by a `!'.)\0
33     Options specify the viewing parameters as well as
34     giving some control over the calculation.
35     Options may be given on the command line and/or read from the
36     environment and/or read from a file.
37     A command argument beginning with a dollar sign ('$') is immediately
38     replaced by the contents of the given environment variable.
39     A command argument beginning with an at sign ('@') is immediately
40     replaced by the contents of the given file.
41     .PP
42     In the second form shown above, the default values
43     for the options (modified by those options present)
44     are printed with a brief explanation.
45     .PP
46 greg 1.28 In the third form, a list of supported features is sent
47     to the standard output, one per line.
48     If additional arguments follow, they are checked for presence in
49     this list.
50     If a feature includes subfeatures, these may be checked as well by
51     specifying:
52     .nf
53    
54     rpict -features FeatName=subfeat1,subfeat2
55    
56     .fi
57     If any named feature or subfeature is missing, an error is
58     reported and the program returns an error status.
59     If all of the named features are present, a zero status is returned.
60     .PP
61 greg 1.1 Most options are followed by one or more arguments, which must be
62     separated from the option and each other by white space.
63     The exceptions to this rule are the
64     .I \-vt
65     option and the boolean options.
66     Normally, the appearance of a boolean option causes a feature to
67     be "toggled", that is switched from off to on or on to off
68     depending on its previous state.
69     Boolean options may also be set
70     explicitly by following them immediately with a '+' or '-', meaning
71     on or off, respectively.
72     Synonyms for '+' are any of the characters "yYtT1", and synonyms
73     for '-' are any of the characters "nNfF0".
74     All other characters will generate an error.
75     .TP 10n
76     .BI -vt t
77     Set view type to
78     .I t.
79     If
80     .I t
81     is 'v', a perspective view is selected.
82     If
83     .I t
84     is 'l', a parallel view is used.
85     A cylindrical panorma may be selected by setting
86     .I t
87     to the letter 'c'.
88     This view is like a standard perspective vertically, but projected
89     on a cylinder horizontally (like a soupcan's-eye view).
90 greg 1.12 Three fisheye views are provided as well; 'h' yields a hemispherical fisheye
91     view, 'a' results in angular fisheye distortion, and 's'
92     results in a planisphere (stereographic) projection.
93 greg 1.1 A hemispherical fisheye is a projection of the hemisphere onto a circle.
94     The maximum view angle for this type is 180 degrees.
95     An angular fisheye view is defined such that distance from the center of
96     the image is proportional to the angle from the central view direction.
97     An angular fisheye can display a full 360 degrees.
98 greg 1.12 A planisphere fisheye view maintains angular relationships between lines,
99     and is commonly used for sun path analysis.
100     This is more commonly known as a
101     "stereographic projection," but we avoid the term here so as not to
102     confuse it with a stereoscopic pair.
103     A planisphere fisheye can display up to (but not including) 360 degrees,
104     although distortion becomes extreme as this limit is approached.
105 greg 1.1 Note that there is no space between the view type
106     option and its single letter argument.
107     .TP
108     .BI -vp " x y z"
109     Set the view point to
110     .I "x y z".
111     This is the focal point of a perspective view or the
112     center of a parallel projection.
113     .TP
114     .BI -vd " xd yd zd"
115     Set the view direction vector to
116     .I "xd yd zd".
117 greg 1.5 The length of this vector indicates the focal distance as needed by the
118     .I \-pd
119     option, described below.
120 greg 1.1 .TP
121     .BI -vu " xd yd zd"
122     Set the view up vector (vertical direction) to
123     .I "xd yd zd".
124     .TP
125     .BI -vh \ val
126     Set the view horizontal size to
127     .I val.
128     For a perspective projection (including fisheye views),
129     .I val
130     is the horizontal field of view (in degrees).
131     For a parallel projection,
132     .I val
133     is the view width in world coordinates.
134     .TP
135     .BI -vv \ val
136     Set the view vertical size to
137     .I val.
138     .TP
139     .BI -vo \ val
140     Set the view fore clipping plane at a distance of
141     .I val
142     from the view point.
143     The plane will be perpendicular to the view direction for
144     perspective and parallel view types.
145     For fisheye view types, the clipping plane is actually a clipping
146     sphere, centered on the view point with radius
147     .I val.
148     Objects in front of this imaginary surface will not be visible.
149     This may be useful for seeing through walls (to get a longer
150     perspective from an exterior view point) or for incremental
151     rendering.
152     A value of zero implies no foreground clipping.
153     A negative value produces some interesting effects, since it creates an
154     inverted image for objects behind the viewpoint.
155     This possibility is provided mostly for the purpose of rendering
156     stereographic holograms.
157     .TP
158     .BI -va \ val
159     Set the view aft clipping plane at a distance of
160     .I val
161     from the view point.
162     Like the view fore plane, it will be perpendicular to the view
163     direction for perspective and parallel view types.
164     For fisheye view types, the clipping plane is actually a clipping
165     sphere, centered on the view point with radius
166     .I val.
167     Objects behind this imaginary surface will not be visible.
168     A value of zero means no aft clipping, and is the only way to see
169     infinitely distant objects such as the sky.
170     .TP
171     .BI -vs \ val
172     Set the view shift to
173     .I val.
174     This is the amount the actual image will be shifted to the right of
175     the specified view.
176     This is option is useful for generating skewed perspectives or
177     rendering an image a piece at a time.
178     A value of 1 means that the rendered image starts just to the right of
179     the normal view.
180 greg 1.11 A value of \-1 would be to the left.
181 greg 1.1 Larger or fractional values are permitted as well.
182     .TP
183     .BI -vl \ val
184     Set the view lift to
185     .I val.
186     This is the amount the actual image will be lifted up from the
187     specified view, similar to the
188     .I \-vs
189     option.
190     .TP
191     .BI -vf \ file
192     Get view parameters from
193     .I file,
194 greg 1.3 which may be a picture or a file created by rvu (with the "view" command).
195 greg 1.1 .TP
196     .BI -x \ res
197     Set the maximum x resolution to
198     .I res.
199     .TP
200     .BI -y \ res
201     Set the maximum y resolution to
202     .I res.
203     .TP
204     .BI -pa \ rat
205     Set the pixel aspect ratio (height over width) to
206     .I rat.
207     Either the x or the y resolution will be reduced so that the pixels have
208     this ratio for the specified view.
209     If
210     .I rat
211     is zero, then the x and y resolutions will adhere to the given maxima.
212     .TP
213     .BI -ps \ size
214     Set the pixel sample spacing to the integer
215     .I size.
216     This specifies the sample spacing (in pixels) for adaptive subdivision
217     on the image plane.
218     .TP
219     .BI -pt \ frac
220     Set the pixel sample tolerance to
221     .I frac.
222     If two samples differ by more than this amount, a third
223     sample is taken between them.
224     .TP
225     .BI -pj \ frac
226     Set the pixel sample jitter to
227     .I frac.
228     Distributed ray-tracing performs anti-aliasing by randomly sampling
229     over pixels.
230     A value of one will randomly distribute samples over full
231 greg 1.26 pixels, and is not really recommended due to the tendency of
232     samples to (nearly) coincide.
233 greg 1.1 A value of zero samples pixel centers only.
234 greg 1.26 A value around 0.5-0.8 is typical.
235 greg 1.1 .TP
236     .BI -pm \ frac
237     Set the pixel motion blur to
238     .I frac.
239     In an animated sequence, the exact view will be blurred between the previous
240     view and the next view as though a shutter were open this fraction of a
241     frame time.
242     (See the
243     .I \-S
244     option regarding animated sequences.)\0
245     The first view will be blurred according to the difference between the
246     initial view set on the command line and the first view taken from the
247     standard input.
248     It is not advisable to use this option in combination with the
249     .I pmblur(1)
250     program, since one takes the place of the other.
251     However, it may improve results with
252     .I pmblur
253     to use a very small fraction with the
254     .I \-pm
255     option, to avoid the ghosting effect of too few time samples.
256     .TP
257 greg 1.4 .BI -pd \ dia
258     Set the pixel depth-of-field aperture to a diameter of
259     .I dia
260     (in world coordinates).
261     This will be used in conjunction with the view focal distance, indicated
262     by the length of the view direction vector given in the
263     .I \-vd
264     option.
265     It is not advisable to use this option in combination with the
266     .I pdfblur(1)
267     program, since one takes the place of the other.
268     However, it may improve results with
269     .I pdfblur
270     to use a very small fraction with the
271     .I \-pd
272     option, to avoid the ghosting effect of too few samples.
273     .TP
274 greg 1.1 .BI -dj \ frac
275     Set the direct jittering to
276     .I frac.
277     A value of zero samples each source at specific sample points
278     (see the
279     .I \-ds
280     option below), giving a smoother but somewhat less accurate
281     rendering.
282     A positive value causes rays to be distributed over each
283     source sample according to its size, resulting in more accurate
284     penumbras.
285     This option should never be greater than 1, and may even
286     cause problems (such as speckle) when the value is smaller.
287     A warning about aiming failure will issued if
288     .I frac
289     is too large.
290     It is usually wise to turn off image sampling when using
291 greg 1.11 direct jitter by setting \-ps to 1.
292 greg 1.1 .TP
293     .BI -ds \ frac
294     Set the direct sampling ratio to
295     .I frac.
296     A light source will be subdivided until
297     the width of each sample area divided by the distance
298     to the illuminated point is below this ratio.
299     This assures accuracy in regions close to large area sources
300     at a slight computational expense.
301     A value of zero turns source subdivision off, sending at most one
302     shadow ray to each light source.
303     .TP
304     .BI -dt \ frac
305     Set the direct threshold to
306     .I frac.
307     Shadow testing will stop when the potential contribution of at least
308     the next and at most all remaining light source samples is less than
309     this fraction of the accumulated value.
310     (See the
311     .I \-dc
312     option below.)\0
313     The remaining light source contributions are approximated
314     statistically.
315     A value of zero means that all light source samples will be tested for shadow.
316     .TP
317     .BI \-dc \ frac
318     Set the direct certainty to
319     .I frac.
320     A value of one guarantees that the absolute accuracy of the direct calculation
321     will be equal to or better than that given in the
322     .I \-dt
323     specification.
324     A value of zero only insures that all shadow lines resulting in a contrast
325     change greater than the
326     .I \-dt
327     specification will be calculated.
328     .TP
329     .BI -dr \ N
330 greg 1.27 Set the number of relays for virtual sources to
331 greg 1.1 .I N.
332 greg 1.27 A value of 0 means that virtual sources will be ignored.
333 greg 1.1 A value of 1 means that sources will be made into first generation
334 greg 1.27 virtual sources; a value of 2 means that first generation
335     virtual sources will also be made into second generation virtual
336 greg 1.1 sources, and so on.
337     .TP
338     .BI -dp \ D
339 greg 1.27 Set the virtual source presampling density to D.
340 greg 1.1 This is the number of samples per steradian
341     that will be used to determine ahead of time whether or not
342     it is worth following shadow rays through all the reflections and/or
343 greg 1.27 transmissions associated with a virtual source path.
344     A value of 0 means that the full virtual source path will always
345 greg 1.1 be tested for shadows if it is tested at all.
346     .TP
347     .BR \-dv
348     Boolean switch for light source visibility.
349     With this switch off, sources will be black when viewed directly
350     although they will still participate in the direct calculation.
351     This option may be desirable in conjunction with the
352     .I \-i
353     option so that light sources do not appear in the output.
354     .TP
355 greg 1.15 .BI -ss \ samp
356     Set the specular sampling to
357     .I samp.
358     For values less than 1, this is the degree to which the highlights
359     are sampled for rough specular materials.
360     A value greater than one causes multiple ray samples to be sent
361     to reduce noise at a commmesurate cost.
362 greg 1.1 A value of zero means that no jittering will take place, and all
363     reflections will appear sharp even when they should be diffuse.
364     This may be desirable when used in combination with image sampling
365     (see
366     .I \-ps
367     option above) to obtain faster renderings.
368     .TP
369     .BI -st \ frac
370     Set the specular sampling threshold to
371     .I frac.
372     This is the minimum fraction of reflection or transmission, under which
373     no specular sampling is performed.
374     A value of zero means that highlights will always be sampled by
375     tracing reflected or transmitted rays.
376     A value of one means that specular sampling is never used.
377     Highlights from light sources will always be correct, but
378     reflections from other surfaces will be approximated using an
379     ambient value.
380     A sampling threshold between zero and one offers a compromise between image
381     accuracy and rendering time.
382     .TP
383     .BR -bv
384     Boolean switch for back face visibility.
385 greg 1.16 With this switch off, back faces of all objects will be invisible
386     to view rays.
387 greg 1.1 This is dangerous unless the model was constructed such that
388 greg 1.16 all surface normals face outward.
389 greg 1.1 Although turning off back face visibility does not save much
390     computation time under most circumstances, it may be useful as a
391     tool for scene debugging, or for seeing through one-sided walls from
392     the outside.
393     .TP
394     .BI -av " red grn blu"
395     Set the ambient value to a radiance of
396     .I "red grn blu".
397     This is the final value used in place of an
398     indirect light calculation.
399     If the number of ambient bounces is one or greater and the ambient
400     value weight is non-zero (see
401     .I -aw
402     and
403     .I -ab
404     below), this value may be modified by the computed indirect values
405     to improve overall accuracy.
406     .TP
407     .BI -aw \ N
408     Set the relative weight of the ambient value given with the
409     .I -av
410     option to
411     .I N.
412     As new indirect irradiances are computed, they will modify the
413     default ambient value in a moving average, with the specified weight
414     assigned to the initial value given on the command and all other
415     weights set to 1.
416     If a value of 0 is given with this option, then the initial ambient
417     value is never modified.
418     This is the safest value for scenes with large differences in
419     indirect contributions, such as when both indoor and outdoor
420     (daylight) areas are visible.
421     .TP
422     .BI -ab \ N
423     Set the number of ambient bounces to
424     .I N.
425 greg 1.18 This is the maximum number of diffuse bounces computed by the indirect
426     calculation. A value of zero implies no indirect calculation.
427     .IP
428 rschregle 1.20 This value defaults to 1 in photon mapping mode (see
429 greg 1.18 .I -ap
430 rschregle 1.20 below), implying that global photon irradiance is always computed via
431 greg 1.18 .I one
432 rschregle 1.20 ambient bounce; this behaviour applies to any positive number of ambient
433     bounces, regardless of the actual value specified. A negative value enables
434     a preview mode that directly visualises the irradiance from the global
435     photon map without any ambient bounces.
436 greg 1.1 .TP
437     .BI -ar \ res
438     Set the ambient resolution to
439     .I res.
440     This number will determine the maximum density of ambient values
441     used in interpolation.
442     Error will start to increase on surfaces spaced closer than
443     the scene size divided by the ambient resolution.
444     The maximum ambient value density is the scene size times the
445     ambient accuracy (see the
446     .I \-aa
447     option below) divided by the ambient resolution.
448     The scene size can be determined using
449     .I getinfo(1)
450     with the
451     .I \-d
452     option on the input octree.
453     A value of zero is interpreted as unlimited resolution.
454     .TP
455     .BI -aa \ acc
456     Set the ambient accuracy to
457     .I acc.
458     This value will approximately equal the error
459 greg 1.27 from indirect irradiance interpolation.
460 greg 1.1 A value of zero implies no interpolation.
461     .TP
462     .BI -ad \ N
463     Set the number of ambient divisions to
464     .I N.
465     The error in the Monte Carlo calculation of indirect
466 greg 1.27 irradiance will be inversely proportional to the square
467 greg 1.1 root of this number.
468     A value of zero implies no indirect calculation.
469     .TP
470     .BI -as \ N
471     Set the number of ambient super-samples to
472     .I N.
473     Super-samples are applied only to the ambient divisions which
474     show a significant change.
475     .TP
476     .BI -af \ fname
477     Set the ambient file to
478     .I fname.
479 greg 1.27 This is where indirect irradiance will be stored and retrieved.
480     Normally, indirect irradiance values are kept in memory and
481 greg 1.1 lost when the program finishes or dies.
482 greg 1.27 By using a file, different invocations can share irradiance
483 greg 1.1 values, saving time in the computation.
484 greg 1.26 Also, by creating an ambient file during a low-resolution rendering,
485     better results can be obtained in a second high-resolution pass.
486     (It is a good idea to keep all of the calculation parameters the same,
487     changing only the dimensions of the output picture.)\0
488 greg 1.1 The ambient file is in a machine-independent binary format
489     which may be examined with
490     .I lookamb(1).
491     .IP
492     The ambient file may also be used as a means of communication and
493     data sharing between simultaneously executing processes.
494     The same file may be used by multiple processes, possibly running on
495     different machines and accessing the file via the network (ie.
496     .I nfs(4)).
497     The network lock manager
498     .I lockd(8)
499     is used to insure that this information is used consistently.
500     .IP
501     If any calculation parameters are changed or the scene
502     is modified, the old ambient file should be removed so that
503     the calculation can start over from scratch.
504     For convenience, the original ambient parameters are listed in the
505     header of the ambient file.
506     .I Getinfo(1)
507     may be used to print out this information.
508     .TP
509 greg 1.7 .BI -ae \ mod
510 greg 1.1 Append
511 greg 1.7 .I mod
512 greg 1.1 to the ambient exclude list,
513     so that it will not be considered during the indirect calculation.
514     This is a hack for speeding the indirect computation by
515     ignoring certain objects.
516     Any object having
517 greg 1.7 .I mod
518 greg 1.1 as its modifier will get the default ambient
519     level rather than a calculated value.
520 greg 1.7 Any number of excluded modifiers may be given, but each
521 greg 1.1 must appear in a separate option.
522     .TP
523 greg 1.7 .BI -ai \ mod
524 greg 1.1 Add
525 greg 1.7 .I mod
526 greg 1.1 to the ambient include list,
527     so that it will be considered during the indirect calculation.
528     The program can use either an include list or an exclude
529     list, but not both.
530     .TP
531     .BI -aE \ file
532     Same as
533     .I \-ae,
534 greg 1.7 except read modifiers to be excluded from
535 greg 1.1 .I file.
536     The RAYPATH environment variable determines which directories are
537     searched for this file.
538 greg 1.7 The modifier names are separated by white space in the file.
539 greg 1.1 .TP
540     .BI -aI \ file
541     Same as
542     .I \-ai,
543 greg 1.7 except read modifiers to be included from
544 greg 1.1 .I file.
545     .TP
546 greg 1.18 .BI -ap " file [bwidth1 [bwidth2]]"
547     Enable photon mapping mode. Loads a photon map generated with
548     .I mkpmap(1)
549     from
550     .I file,
551     and evaluates the indirect irradiance depending on the photon type
552     (automagically detected) using density estimates with a bandwidth of
553     .I bwidth1
554     photons, or the default bandwidth if none is specified (a warning will be
555     issued in this case).
556     .IP
557     Global photon irradiance is evaluated as part of the ambient calculation (see
558     .I \-ab
559     above), caustic photon irradiance is evaluated at primary rays, and
560     indirect inscattering in
561     .I mist
562 rschregle 1.22 is accounted for by volume photons. Contribution photons are treated as
563     global photons by
564     .I rpict.
565 greg 1.18 .IP
566     Additionally specifying
567     .I bwidth2
568     enables bias compensation for the density estimates with a
569     minimum and maximum bandwidth of
570     .I bwidth1
571     and
572     .I bwidth2,
573     respectively.
574     .IP
575     Global photon irradiance may be optionally precomputed by
576     .I mkpmap(1),
577     in which case the bandwidth, if specified, is ignored, as the nearest photon
578     is invariably looked up.
579     .IP
580     Using direct photons replaces the direct calculation with density estimates
581 rschregle 1.22 for debugging and validation of photon emission.
582 greg 1.18 .TP
583     .BI -am " frac"
584 rschregle 1.20 Maximum search radius for photon map lookups. Without this option, an
585     initial maximum search radius is estimated for each photon map from the
586     average photon distance to the distribution's centre of gravity. It is then
587     adapted to the photon density in subsequent lookups. This option imposes a
588     global fixed maximum search radius for
589     .I all
590     photon maps, thus defeating the automatic adaptation. It is useful when
591     multiple warnings about short photon lookups are issued. Note that this
592     option does not conflict with the bandwidth specified with the
593     .I \-ap
594     option; the number of photons found will not exceed the latter, but may be
595     lower if the maximum search radius contains fewer photons, thus resulting in
596     short lookups. Setting this radius too large, on the other hand, may
597     degrade performance.
598 greg 1.18 .TP
599 rschregle 1.21 .BI -ac " pagesize"
600     Set the photon cache page size when using out-of-core photon mapping. The
601     photon cache reduces disk I/O incurred by on-demand loading (paging) of
602     photons, and thus increases performance. This
603     is expressed as a (float) multiple of the density estimate bandwidth
604     specified with
605     .I \-ap
606     under the assumption that photon lookups are local to a cache page. Cache
607     performance is sensitive to this parameter: larger pagesizes will reduce the
608     paging frequency at the expense of higher latency when paging does occur.
609     Sensible values are in the range 4 (default) to 16.
610     .TP
611     .BI -aC " cachesize"
612     Set the total number of photons cached when using out-of-core photon
613     mapping, taking into account the pagesize specified by
614     .I \-ac.
615     Note that this is approximate as the number of cache pages is rounded to
616     the nearest prime. This allows adapting the cache to the available physical
617 rschregle 1.25 memory. Cache performance is less sensitive to this parameter, and reasonable
618     performance can obtained with as few as 10k photons. The default is 1M. This
619     option recognises multiplier suffixes (k = 1e3, M = 1e6), both in upper and
620     lower case.
621 rschregle 1.21 .TP
622 greg 1.1 .BI -me " rext gext bext"
623     Set the global medium extinction coefficient to the indicated color,
624     in units of 1/distance (distance in world coordinates).
625     Light will be scattered or absorbed over distance according to
626     this value.
627     The ratio of scattering to total scattering plus absorption is set
628     by the albedo parameter, described below.
629     .TP
630     .BI -ma " ralb galb balb"
631     Set the global medium albedo to the given value between 0\00\00
632     and 1\01\01.
633     A zero value means that all light not transmitted by the medium
634     is absorbed.
635     A unitary value means that all light not transmitted by the medium
636     is scattered in some new direction.
637     The isotropy of scattering is determined by the Heyney-Greenstein
638     parameter, described below.
639     .TP
640     .BI \-mg \ gecc
641     Set the medium Heyney-Greenstein eccentricity parameter to
642     .I gecc.
643     This parameter determines how strongly scattering favors the forward
644     direction.
645     A value of 0 indicates perfectly isotropic scattering.
646     As this parameter approaches 1, scattering tends to prefer the
647     forward direction.
648     .TP
649     .BI \-ms \ sampdist
650     Set the medium sampling distance to
651     .I sampdist,
652     in world coordinate units.
653     During source scattering, this will be the average distance between
654     adjacent samples.
655     A value of 0 means that only one sample will be taken per light
656     source within a given scattering volume.
657     .TP
658     .BR \-i
659     Boolean switch to compute irradiance rather than radiance values.
660     This only affects the final result, substituting a Lambertian
661     surface and multiplying the radiance by pi.
662     Glass and other transparent surfaces are ignored during this stage.
663     Light sources still appear with their original radiance values,
664     though the
665     .I \-dv
666     option (above) may be used to override this.
667     .TP
668 greg 1.10 .BR \-u
669     Boolean switch to control uncorrelated random sampling.
670 greg 1.9 When "off", a low-discrepancy sequence is used, which reduces
671 greg 1.17 variance but can result in a dithered appearance in specular highlights.
672 greg 1.9 When "on", pure Monte Carlo sampling is used in all calculations.
673     .TP
674 greg 1.1 .BI -lr \ N
675     Limit reflections to a maximum of
676 greg 1.14 .I N,
677     if N is a positive integer.
678 greg 1.8 If
679     .I N
680     is zero, then Russian roulette is used for ray
681     termination, and the
682     .I -lw
683     setting (below) must be positive.
684 greg 1.24 If N is a negative integer, then this limits the maximum
685     number of reflections even with Russian roulette.
686 greg 1.8 In scenes with dielectrics and total internal reflection,
687     a setting of 0 (no limit) may cause a stack overflow.
688 greg 1.1 .TP
689     .BI -lw \ frac
690     Limit the weight of each ray to a minimum of
691     .I frac.
692 greg 1.8 During ray-tracing, a record is kept of the estimated contribution
693     (weight) a ray would have in the image.
694     If this weight is less than the specified minimum and the
695     .I -lr
696     setting (above) is positive, the ray is not traced.
697     Otherwise, Russian roulette is used to
698     continue rays with a probability equal to the ray weight
699     divided by the given
700     .I frac.
701 greg 1.1 .TP
702     .BI -S \ seqstart
703     Instead of generating a single picture based only on the view
704     parameters given on the command line, this option causes
705     .I rpict
706     to read view options from the standard input and for each line
707     containing a valid view specification, generate a corresponding
708     picture.
709     This option is most useful for generating animated sequences, though
710     it may also be used to control rpict from a remote process for
711     network-distributed rendering.
712     .I Seqstart
713     is a positive integer that will be associated with the first output
714     frame, and incremented for successive output frames.
715     By default, each frame is concatenated to the output stream, but it
716     is possible to change this action using the
717     .I \-o
718     option (described below).
719     Multiple frames may be later extracted from the output using
720     .I ra_rgbe(1).
721     .IP
722     Note that the octree may not be read from the standard input when
723     using this option.
724     .TP
725     .BI -o \ fspec
726     Send the picture(s) to the file(s) given by
727     .I fspec
728     instead of the standard output.
729     If this option is used in combination with
730     .I \-S
731     and
732     .I fspec
733     contains an integer field for
734     .I printf(3)
735     (eg. "%03d") then the actual output file name will include
736     the current frame number.
737     .I Rpict
738     will not allow a picture file to be clobbered (overwritten)
739     with this option.
740     If an image in a sequence already exists
741     .I (\-S
742     option),
743     .I rpict
744     will skip until it reaches an image that doesn't, or the end of
745     the sequence.
746     This is useful for running rpict on multiple machines or processors
747     to render the same sequence, as each process will skip to the next
748     frame that needs rendering.
749     .TP
750     .BI -r \ fn
751     Recover pixel information from the file
752     .I fn.
753     If the program gets killed during picture generation, the information
754     may be recovered using this option.
755     The view parameters and picture dimensions are also recovered from
756     .I fn
757     if possible.
758     The other options should be identical to those which created
759     .I fn,
760     or an inconsistent picture may result.
761     If
762     .I fn
763     is identical to the file specification given with the
764     .I \-o
765     option,
766     .I rpict
767     will rename the file prior to copying its contents.
768     This insures that the old file is not overwritten accidentally.
769     (See also the
770     .I \-ro
771     option, below.)\0
772     .IP
773     If
774     .I fn
775     is an integer and the recover option is used in combination with the
776     .I \-S
777     option, then
778     .I rpict
779     skips a number of view specifications on its input equal to the
780     difference between
781     .I fn
782     and
783     .I seqstart.
784     .I Rpict
785     then performs a recovery operation on the file constructed from the
786     frame number
787     .I fn
788     and the output file specification given with the
789     .I \-o
790     option.
791     This provides a convenient mechanism for recovering in the middle of
792     an aborted picture sequence.
793     .IP
794     The recovered file
795     will be removed if the operation is successful.
796     If the recover operation fails (due to lack of disk space)
797     and the output file and recover file specifications
798     are the same, then the original information may be left in a
799     renamed temporary file.
800     (See FILES section, below.)\0
801     .TP
802     .BI -ro \ fspec
803     This option causes pixel information to be recovered from and
804     subsequently returned to the picture file
805     .I fspec.
806     The effect is the same as specifying identical recover and output
807     file names with the
808     .I \-r
809     and
810     .I \-o
811     options.
812     .TP
813     .BI -z \ fspec
814     Write pixel distances out to the file
815     .I fspec.
816     The values are written as short floats, one per pixel in scanline order,
817     as required by
818     .I pinterp(1).
819     Similar to the
820     .I \-o
821     option, the actual file name will be constructed using
822     .I printf
823     and the frame number from the
824     .I \-S
825     option.
826     If used with the
827     .I \-r
828     option,
829     .I \-z
830     also recovers information from an aborted rendering.
831     .TP
832     .BI \-P \ pfile
833     Execute in a persistent mode, using
834     .I pfile
835     as the control file.
836     This option must be used together with
837     .I \-S,
838     and is incompatible with the recover option
839     .I (\-r).
840     Persistent execution means that after reaching end-of-file on
841     its input,
842     .I rpict
843     will fork a child process that will wait for another
844     .I rpict
845     command with the same
846     .I \-P
847     option to attach to it.
848     (Note that since the rest of the command line options will be those
849     of the original invocation, it is not necessary to give any arguments
850     besides
851     .I \-P
852     for subsequent calls.)
853     Killing the process is achieved with the
854     .I kill(1)
855     command.
856     (The process ID in the first line of
857     .I pfile
858     may be used to identify the waiting
859     .I rpict
860     process.)
861     This option may be less useful than the
862     .I \-PP
863     variation, explained below.
864     .TP
865     .BI \-PP \ pfile
866     Execute in continuous-forking persistent mode, using
867     .I pfile
868     as the control file.
869     The difference between this option and the
870     .I \-P
871     option described above is the creation of multiple duplicate
872     processes to handle any number of attaches.
873     This provides a simple and reliable mechanism of memory sharing
874     on most multiprocessing platforms, since the
875     .I fork(2)
876     system call will share memory on a copy-on-write basis.
877     This option may be used with
878     .I rpiece(1)
879     to efficiently render a single image using multiple processors
880     on the same host.
881     .TP
882     .BI -t \ sec
883     Set the time between progress reports to
884     .I sec.
885     A progress report writes the number of rays traced, the percentage
886     completed, and the CPU usage to the standard error.
887     Reports are given either automatically after the specified interval,
888 greg 1.11 or when the process receives a continue (\-CONT) signal (see
889 greg 1.1 .I kill(1)).
890     A value of zero turns automatic reporting off.
891     .TP
892     .BI -e \ efile
893     Send error messages and progress reports to
894     .I efile
895     instead of the standard error.
896     .TP
897     .BR \-w
898     Boolean switch for warning messages.
899     The default is to print warnings, so the first appearance of
900     this option turns them off.
901     .SH EXAMPLE
902 greg 1.13 rpict \-vp 10 5 3 \-vd 1 \-.5 0 scene.oct > scene.hdr
903 greg 1.1 .PP
904 greg 1.13 rpict \-S 1 \-o frame%02d.hdr scene.oct < keyframes.vf
905 greg 1.18 .PP
906 greg 1.27 To render ambient irradiance in photon mapping mode from a global photon
907 greg 1.18 map global.pm via one ambient bounce, and from a caustic photon map
908     caustic.pm:
909     .IP "" .2i
910     rpict -ab 1 -ap global.pm 50 -ap caustic.pm 50 -vf scene.vf scene.oct >
911     scene.hdr
912 greg 1.1 .SH ENVIRONMENT
913     RAYPATH the directories to check for auxiliary files.
914     .SH FILES
915 greg 1.6 /tmp/rtXXXXXX common header information for picture sequence
916 greg 1.1 .br
917     rfXXXXXX temporary name for recover file
918     .SH DIAGNOSTICS
919     If the program terminates from an input related error, the exit status
920     will be 1.
921     A system related error results in an exit status of 2.
922     If the program receives a signal that is caught, it will exit with a status
923     of 3.
924     In each case, an error message will be printed to the standard error, or
925     to the file designated by the
926     .I \-e
927     option.
928     .SH AUTHOR
929     Greg Ward
930     .SH "SEE ALSO"
931 greg 1.18 getinfo(1), lookamb(1), mkpmap(1), oconv(1), pdfblur(1), pfilt(1),
932 greg 1.23 pinterp(1), pmblur(1), printf(3), ra_rgbe(1), rad(1), rpiece(1), rtpict(1), rtrace(1), rvu(1)