--- ray/doc/notes/ReleaseNotes 2005/01/07 20:33:01 1.61 +++ ray/doc/notes/ReleaseNotes 2008/04/18 18:06:29 1.147 @@ -1382,9 +1382,288 @@ care to support officially due to its machine-dependen Fixed bug that caused incorrect reporting of non-surface in set when mixing meshes and instances. (Thanks to Jack de Valpine for discovery.) -Fixed innacuracy in calculation of diffuse transmission in the presence +Fixed inaccuracy in calculation of diffuse transmission in the presence of pure specular (Fresnel reflection) using "trans" material. Thanks to Christoph Reinhart for pointing out the error. Made internal change to tone-mapping library to use structure pointer rather than stack, making code re-entrant and more up to modern standards. + +Added -pd option to handle depth-of-field blur in rpict. This requires +that the view directon (-vd option) include focal distance information, +which is now preserved by the various view file routines, and reported +by the vwright command. + +Added DBLUR variable to ranimate and pmdblur script to handle simultaneous +motion and depth-of-field blurring. Thanks to Visarc for funding this work. + +Added setting of focus distance in rvu ("focus" command) and rholo +('f'/"frame" command). + +Changed default remote shell in ranimate to "ssh" rather than "rsh", +which has been abandoned on most Unix systems due to security issues. + +Fixed behavior of source primitive using illum with no alternate +material. These now become transparent so one can see the sky or +light-probe background for use in image-based lighting. Previously, +the user needed to specify the background glow as the alternate +material for a distant illum source to behave properly. (This still +works.) + +Fixed some minor problems and inconsistencies with 16-bit/channel +TIFF i/o in ra_tiff. + +Created mksource program to generate distant sources for improved +image-based lighting with light probes. + +Changed ambient calculation so that -ad will not limit recursion +depth, and a minimum of 27 samples will be sent out for each stored +ambient value, or 3 samples if -aa is 0 (caching off). + +Added -oM option to rtrace to report material (rather than modifier) +for cases where actual material is aliased or further up modifier chain. + +Rearranged the way ray contributions are computed so that it might be +possible to use rtrace to derive daylight coefficients and optical +transfer functions. The new -oTW option of rtrace produces color +contribution weights for each ray, which combined with the -ti (or -tI) +option permits the contribution of selected surfaces or sources to +be determined. Using the -oTW option, one should also specify +options "-dt 0 -aa 0 -as 0" for optimal results. In particular, +one cannot expect reasonable tallies with -ab >= 1 and irradiance +caching on (-aa > 0). + +The same code modifications included a change to the indirect computation +with caching switched off (-aa 0). Whereas before, the number of secondary +rays after the first bounce were half of the previous generation, they are +now determined by the surface reflectance, making for a better and faster +calculation. It should now be possible to compute many bounces with -aa 0, +which used to be prohibitively expensive. + +Added -T option to xshowtrace to trace rays to light sources. + +Added meta2bmp program to produce BMP files from metafile graphics. + +Added cct_x(t) and cct_y(t) to src/cal/cal/blackbody.cal to interpolate +CIE chromaticities for particular black-body temperatures. + +Increased maximum number of input pictures in pcomb and pcompos to 512. + +Created rtcontrib program for computing ray contribution coefficients. +This tool may be used to do standard optical ray tracing or daylight +coefficient calculations for annual simulations, among other uses. + +Added tilde ('~') output option as part of the -o* specification of +rtrace. This permits ray trees to be parsed more easily in binary +output mode, as needed by rtcontrib. + +Implemented Russian roulette ray termination with -lr <= 0. +Made -lr -10 the default in rtcontrib. + +Made rtcontrib -f option search RAYPATH directories. + +Made it so -o option of rtcontrib can pipe -o output to a command. + +Added -if and -of options to total for binary i/o (following rcalc mold). + +Switched default options in rtrace to use Russian roulette. (Rpict and rvu +still use biased ray termination.) + +Added rtcontrib -r option to recover partial output. + +Added -u rendering option for pure Monte Carlo sampling. +(Got rid of -DMC compile option, which this makes superfluous.) + +Changed -t option of rlam to accept strings as well as single characters. + +Fixed bug in rcalc with -l option where it would sometimes go into an +infinite loop. + +Fixed truly ancient bug in bounding box computation for cones, which +could (and did) cause missing segments. + +Added -z option to normtiff to output LZW-compressed files. + +Last change to total causes it to produce results when it sees an empty +line on the input. This was not intentional, but I decided I like this +behavior so I documented it rather than changing it. + +===================== +Version 3.8 + +Fixed Russian roulette ray termination, which was doing the opposite of +what it should have been doing, resulting in overestimated values below +minimum ray sampling weight (serious). + +Changed mksource to use 98th percentile (rather than 99th) for threshold. + +(Above changes included in 3.7.1 patch release.) + +Eliminated writing of EXPOSURE= line in ra_tiff -r when source TIFF +does not have STONITS set. + +Fixed bug in ambient calculation that caused black values for multiple +bounces in some scenes. Thanks to Mark Stock for creating and sharing +the sophisticated test scene that demonstrated this problem. + +Fixed bug in antimatter using Russian Roulette sampling. + +(Above changes included in 3.7.2 patch release 22 Aug 2005.) + +Created fieldcomb script to combine alternate fields in a rendering +sequence. (Development generously sponsored by Iebele Abel.) + +Added missing preload of mesh objects for more efficient memory use +during parallel rendering -- this was a serious oversight. + +Created ran2tiff program to automate exposure setting of animation +sequences using a moving histogram in combination with pcond, and +converting frames to TIFF. + +Eliminated SPEED macro from makeall and source tree. + +Added -pj option to vwrays to allow jittering of sample locations. + +Fixed bug in rtcontrib where it occasionally missed writing the +final bin file. (Pretty serious, actually.) + +Added -Dfseeko=fseek to MACH= line for linux, as fseeko(3) seems to be +broken in current versions of Linux. (Need to remove this later.) + +Rearranged struct's for better efficiency on 64-bit architectures. + +Added -i option to rlam so it works with binary input formats. + +Added rtcontrib -bn option to specify number of bins and fixed bug +in recovery of files containing multiple values per record. + +Added rtcontrib -fo option to write over existing files, which it now +refuses to do without this option. + +Made rtcontrib flush output when handed a zero-length ray vector, +to match behavior of rtrace. + +Improved color scale for falsecolor output. + +Added threshold test for Fresnel approximation to prevent its use +on smooth surfaces with unrealistically low specularities (less than 1.8%). +Water has a specular reflectance of 2.1% at room temperture. + +Removed NICE macro settings in rpict and rtrace, which was slowing down +the processes under Mac OS X (10.4) by about 60% due to processor napping. + +Made xform, replmarks and rad2mgf handle quoted modifiers and names properly. + +Fixed problem in genblinds, where it was generating slats that were too +wide with the +/-r option. (Thanks to Helena Buelow-Huebe for discovering +this bug.) + +Fixed bug in ra_ppm for 16-bit/sample i/o, where it was getting the byte +order wrong (apparently). + +Added -V option to rtcontrib to report actual contributions, rather than +just ray coefficients. + +Fixed bug in ranimate that caused it to fail in continuation of renderings. + +Renamed librt.a to librtrad.a, to avoid conflict on Solaris. Almost +everything now gets linked to -lrtrad instead of -lrt. + +Fixed problem with large sample sets, so -u+ option now is truly random. +Thanks to Rick Mistrick and Younju Yoon for identifying this problem, +which was related to a poorly designed hash function. + +Changed -u+ to be the default setting in rtrace (only). + +Fixed binary i/o for rlam and vwrays under Windows. + +Added tmCvLums() to tone-mapping routines using a 16-bit lookup table +on IEEE floats, which is also used to improve speed of COLOR conversions, +especially on machines with slow log() calls. The first call to +tmCvLums(), tmCvGrays(), or tmCvColors() initializes the table. + +Created optics2rad.csh script to convert from Optics 5 material output +to something correct for Radiance. Built on old glazing.cal function, +which is actually incorrect so removed from the distribution. + +Fixed nuisance bug in ximage under some SGI machines that caused it to +choose an inappropriate visual and display incorrect colors. (Thanks +to Oskar Itzinger for debugging the problem.) + +Fixed long-standing inaccuracy of pcompos -t and +t thresholding options. + +Fixed bug in handling of views with tabs rather than spaces. + +Fixed bug related to alias of alias. + +****** COMPATIBILITY CHANGE ******** +Changed default sky turbidity in gensky from the original default of +2.75 to the CIE 110-1994 standard value of 2.45. Thanks to Marilyne +Anderson of MIT for pointing out this discrepancy. + +Added -o option to ra_xyze to produce original pixel values. + +Fixed bug in tracing of virtual sources, where intervening glazing was +not being accounted for properly. + +Added -h option to pcompos and pcomb to eliminate verbose headers. + +===================== +Version 3.9 + +Added -spec option to falsecolor to restore original spectral color scale. +Also added "-s auto" option to automatically set the maximum value. + +Added byte-swapping input and output to rcalc. + +Additional error-checking for source surfaces. + +Re-fixed bug in octree code that caused it to allocate 8 times as +much memory as it actually used(!) -- this was pointed out way back +in 1999 by Erik Reinhard and Erik Jansen, but the fix they gave me +got lost in the slightly broken release process at the time. This +should make a big difference in memory usage, especially for the +new mesh primitive. (I measured 30% less memory usage.) + +Corrected ray weights for material mixtures. + +Reduced the default -n setting for obj2mesh to take better advantage +of the smaller octree structure size. + +Fixed bug in shadow cache where it was adding surfaces with antimatter +holes cut in them to the obstructor list. Thanks to John Mardaljevic +for discovering and reporting the problem. + +Adding ability in mkillum to incorporate BSDF data in calculation. +Internal interface (raypcalls) now used in place of rtrace process(es). + +Fixed pixel alignment in pcomb for size reduction and enlargement. + +Allow rtcontrib user to set -P and -PP options for persistent rendering. +The only caveat is that -n setting > 1 requires -PP rather than -P. + +Added -c option to rtcontrib to facilitate cumulative calculations. + +Added ability to incorporate LBNL Window 6 bidirectional scattering +distribution function (BSDF) data in mkillum. + +****** COMPATIBILITY CHANGE ******** +Fixed long-standing bug in source.cal, which caused it to produce +reversed anisotropic photometric distributions due to the +misorientation of the y-axis. Thanks to Zack Rogers for discovering +and helping debug this problem. + +Fixed long-standing bug in replmarks, where triangles with X-side +aligned with Z-axis would cause incorrect rotations. Thanks to +Zack Rogers for finding this error. + +Added rsensor program to compute sensor signal for daylighting controls. +Funding for this component was provided by the Architectural Energy +Corporation in Boulder, CO, and directed by Zack Rogers. + +Added "planisphere" (stereographic) fisheye view type for traditional +daylighting analysis. Feature requested & explained by Axel Jacobs. + +Modified -c option to rtcontrib so it can take a number of input +rays to average over, rather than only produce a single accumulated +record (which can now be done with -c 0).