--- ray/src/util/trad.hlp 1994/11/05 09:31:49 2.4 +++ ray/src/util/trad.hlp 2012/06/03 20:32:49 2.23 @@ -1,9 +1,9 @@ - $Id: trad.hlp,v 2.4 1994/11/05 09:31:49 greg Exp $ + trad.hlp 2.18 10/20/98 This help file is associated with the trad interface to the Radiance rad(1) program. Trad consists of trad.wsh and one do_*.tcl file for -each screen. There are currently seven such screens: Action, File, -Options, Results, Scene, Views and Zone. +each screen. There are currently seven such screens: File, Scene, +Zone, Views, Options, Action and Results. .Trad.Intro @@ -48,6 +48,8 @@ the left mouse button while holding the control key ov curiosity in the main trad window. (In general, only active windows are given help file links -- click on these rather than the text labels.) +Additional search capabilities are available over all topics using +the "Grep" button. For help on the help facility itself, Control-click on the problem help widget or on the window title in the upper right corner for @@ -55,12 +57,6 @@ more general information. (To get back to trad-specific help, press the "HELP" button in the main trad window or Control-click on a trad widget.) -Once the help window has been displayed, it is usually best to -lower or iconify it rather than dismissing it if further help is -needed. -This way, you will not have to wait for the help file to be read in -all over again every time you have a question. - .Trad.Messages Informative messages, commands executed by rad, and errors @@ -402,11 +398,26 @@ long as the overall size of the given box is close to size of the space. The Zone entry windows may be manipulated in the following ways. -Control-U clears the current window. Control-V pastes the contents of the current selection at the insertion point. Return moves the focus to the next window in the chain. +The "Auto" button may be used to set these values based on the bounding +box of one or more Radiance scene files. + +.Zone.Auto + +Use this button to automatically determine the bounding box for this +zone, based on the output of the "getbbox" command run on one or +more Radiance scene files. +The appropriate scene files are entered via a file +selection dialogue box, which comes up after the button is pressed. + +The reason for selecting specific files rather than running getbbox +on the entire scene is that a zone usually does not include large +external objects, which may be present in the complete scene +description. + .Zone.Detail The "Detail" setting indicates the relative level @@ -476,7 +487,7 @@ an important parameter for rendering accuracy. There are two basic ways to compute the exposure value. The first is by trial and error, where the value is adjusted up and -down within rview using the "e = value" command. +down within rvu using the "e = value" command. Though it sounds flaky, this is the most reliable way to set the exposure (and ambient level) in general lighting situations. @@ -494,7 +505,7 @@ tot_flux is given in watts. (Divide total lumens by 179 lumens/watt to get watts.) The exposure value may either be given as a positive real value, or -as a real value preceeded by a '+' or '-' indicating a positive or +as a real value preceded by a '+' or '-' indicating a positive or negative number of f-stops (powers of two) from the original value. If no exposure is given, pfilt will automatically compute the @@ -534,7 +545,7 @@ and/or parameters, and press the "Change" button. To remove an unwanted view, select it and press the "Delete" button. To undo this action, simply press the "Add" button again. -The first view in the list is the default given to rview during +The first view in the list is the default given to rvu during interactive rendering, and is the first view rendered in a batch run. To change the default view, select the newly desired view and press the "Set Default" button. @@ -573,17 +584,17 @@ An invented name should be kept as short as possible, added to the picture file name along with the standard ".pic" suffix. The standard views are specified by strings of the form -"[Xx]?[Yy]?[Zz]?[vlah]?". +"[Xx]?[Yy]?[Zz]?[vlahsc]?". (That is, an optional upper or lower case X followed by an optional upper or lower case Y followed by an optional upper or lower case Z -followed by an optional lower case V, L, A or H.) +followed by an optional lower case view type.) The letters indicate the desired view position, where upper case "X" means maximum X, lower case "y" means minimum Y and so on. The final letter is the view type, where 'v' is perspective (the -default), 'l' is parallel, 'a' is angular fisheye, and 'h' is -hemispherical fisheye. -A perspective view from maximum X, minimum Y would be "Xy" or -"Xyv". +default), 'l' is parallel, 'a' is angular fisheye, 'h' is +hemispherical fisheye, 's' is for planisphere (stereographic) fisheye, +and 'c' is for cylindrical panorama. +A perspective view from maximum X, minimum Y would be "Xy" or "Xyv". A parallel view from maximum Z would be "Zl". If "ZONE" is an interior zone, the standard views will be inside the perimeter. @@ -603,7 +614,7 @@ Otherwise, it is usually necessary to specify a set of define a view. The simplest view specification is of the form "-vf viewfile", where -"viewfile" is a file created with the rview "view" command, or a +"viewfile" is a file created with the rvu "view" command, or a Radiance picture. This method of naming views, although convenient, is not the best since it is difficult to know exactly where such a view is by @@ -622,8 +633,9 @@ interaction mode for trad. Consult the rpict(1) manual page for a full description of the various view options, all of which begin with "-v". Just briefly, the "-vt?" option sets the view type, where "?" is -replaced by one of the letters "v, l, a or h", corresponding to -perspective, parallel, angular and hemispherical fisheye, respectively. +replaced by one of the letters "v, l, a, h, s or c", corresponding to +perspective, parallel, angular fisheye, hemispherical fisheye +and cylindrical panorama, respectively. The "-vp x y z" option sets the view position (eyepoint), where "x y z" is replaced by the position in 3-space. The "-vd xd yd zd" option sets the view direction, where "xd yd zd" @@ -685,15 +697,12 @@ The "Clear" button simply clears the "Name" and "Optio for the convenience of entering a new view. It has no effect on the rad input variables. -Note that Control-U will always clear an entry box whose cursor is -active. - .Views.Default The "Set Default" button may be used to make the selected view the default view for rendering. This simply moves the view to the top of the list in the rad input file. -The default view will be the one normally rendered by rview when rad +The default view will be the one normally rendered by rvu when rad is started interactively, and is the first view rendered in a batch process. @@ -710,10 +719,19 @@ The standard view up vector may be set to the positive the positive Y axis (+Y), the positive Z axis (+Z), the negative X axis (-X), the negative Y axis (-Y), or the negative Z axis (-Z). -This setting may always be overriden by the "-vu xd yd zd" option, +This setting may always be overridden by the "-vu xd yd zd" option, and will be altered for a particular view if it happens to be parallel to the view direction. +.Views.Eyesep + +The eye separation is used for generating stereo views of +the scene. +It is the measured distance between a viewer's pupils in world +coordinate units. +It is not used directly by rad, but should be set for other programs +that need it, such as rholo and glrad. + .Views.Picture The root picture file name is given in the "Picture" entry window. @@ -749,6 +767,41 @@ to maintain a specific pixel aspect ratio (1 by defaul The default value for this variable is "512". +.Views.Rawfile + +The "Rawfile" entry window determines if and where the raw output picture +from rpict will be saved. +If the entry is empty, the file will be removed after rendering and +filtering. +This is the normal action, since the raw file +takes up disk space and is not generally useful. +However, if you wish to perform some special filtering function, +this file can be renamed instead of removed by giving a +root file name in this entry window. +The final name in this case will be the given root plus and +underscore plus the view name followed by a ".pic" suffix. + +In the special case when the raw file name and picture file name are +the same, the raw file is saved and no filtering takes place. + +.Views.Zfile + +The "Zfile" entry window gives the root name of the file in which to +store the raw (binary floating point) distances to pixels in the +original generated image. +If this entry is empty, then no z-file will be saved. + +The final z-file name will be the given root plus an underscore plus +the view name plus a ".zbf" suffix. + +To convert this image to human-readable form, the program "od" will +work on some systems, or the Radiance "pvalue" program may be used +to first convert it to a greyscale Radiance picture using the +options "-r -h -b -df `getinfo -d < pictname`" where "pictname" is +replaced by the raw picture file name. +(Getinfo simply gets the original image dimensions, which are not +stored in the z-file.) + .Views.Copy The "Copy" button in the Views screen permits those variables @@ -785,7 +838,7 @@ The "Report" variable may be used to specify a time in minutes) between progress reports. Other windows allow the user to customize the options to oconv(1), -mkillum(1), rview(1) and rpict(1), and pfilt(1). +mkillum(1), rvu(1) and rpict(1), and pfilt(1). .Options.Quality @@ -863,7 +916,7 @@ effort. The "Optfile" setting assigns a file to hold rendering options, which may be a convenience when these options are reused for -rtrace(1) or rpiece(1), or manual invocations of rview or rpict. +rtrace(1) or rpiece(1), or manual invocations of rvu or rpict. Using an options file also reduces the size of the command line, making it a little easier on the eye. @@ -879,7 +932,7 @@ a given rendering has progressed. Normally, progress reports and errors during batch renderings are sent to the error file given by the root of the rad input file name followed by the ".err" suffix. -(See the "Errors" topic under the "Action" screen category.) +(See the "CheckErr" topic under the "Action" screen category.) If you wish these reports and errors to be directed to a different file, follow the time interval by a space and a file name. @@ -924,7 +977,7 @@ since rad does not have the intelligence to do it for .Options.Render The "render opts" window is used to specify additional options to -the rview(1) and rpict(1) rendering programs. +the rvu(1) and rpict(1) rendering programs. Most of the important parameters are computed by rad, so this window is usually used to override specific parameters or to give additional information, such as which materials to exclude from the @@ -973,7 +1026,7 @@ This screen is where the actual Radiance programs are run, usually via rad(1). The top row of buttons is used to update the octree following a change to one or more input files. -The "rview" button starts an interactive rendering in the +The "rvu" button starts an interactive rendering in the foreground. The next set of buttons provides for the control of a batch rendering process, taking place in the background. @@ -1051,33 +1104,63 @@ by the "Touch" button. (This will still cause the ambient file to be removed, unfortunately.) -.Action.Rview +.Action.Rvu -The "rview" button on the Action screen starts an interactive +The "rvu" button on the Action screen starts an interactive rendering for the selected view, indicated by the menu button just to the right. -Other views may be accessed within rview using the "L name" +Other views may be accessed within rvu using the "L name" command, and new views can be added with the "V name" command. -(See the rview(1) man page and the "View" topic in the current -help category for more information.) +When using the "V" command to change an existing view, do not +give it an existing name because the previous view will not be overridden. +Instead, give it a new name (or no name, which will show up as +a number later), then use the Views screen to override the previous +view definition with the new one. +(See the "View" topic in the current +help category, the "Change" topic under "Views" and the rvu(1) +manual page for more information.) + If the octree is out-of-date, it will be rebuilt before rendering begins. .Action.View The Action screen contains two menus for selecting views. -The top menu, next to the "rview" button, sets the view to start -with in rview, and is selected from the current view list. +The top menu, next to the "rvu" button, sets the view to start +with in rvu, and is selected from the current view list. The second view menu, next to the "Start" button for batch rendering, selects the view or views to render in batch mode. If the special entry "ALL" is selected, then every view in the current list will be rendered if it hasn't been already. +The view menu next to the "rvu" button will be disabled if there +is only one view to choose from. +The view menu next to the "Start" button will be disabled if there +is a batch job in progress, and thus the view cannot be changed. + The batch rendering view menu also selects the view or views to use in producing a script during a dry run. +.Action.Processes + +The "Number of processes" slider controls how many independent +processes are initiated by the "rvu" and "Start" buttons above +and below. +This should be set no greater than the number of virtual cores +on your system. + +For interactive rendering, the "new" command within rvu may +be used to change the number of processes running. + +For rendering in the background, the number of processes will +never be greater than the number of views if all views are +being rendered. +If only a single view is selected for rendering, rad +will call rpiece to render it in tiles using the given +number of processes. + .Action.Start The "Start" button for batch rendering on the Action screen @@ -1095,11 +1178,17 @@ disabled, and rendering progress can be monitored by c the error file periodically. (This file is named by the root of the rad input file followed by ".err".) -When a batch process is started or already running, this button -will be disabled. +When a batch process is started or already running, or when a +process is on another host and its status is unknown, +this button will be disabled. The background process can be killed during this or later invocations of trad using the "Kill" button. +If the process was started on another machine and the status is unknown, +it will be necessary to run trad from the other host or remove the error +file manually before starting a background process on this machine. +This is to protect you from the great confusion that results when two +machines are working from the same project file. .Action.Kill @@ -1114,7 +1203,7 @@ screen, no data is lost by killing and restarting a ba rendering, though some new startup costs will be incurred. The "Kill" button is disabled if no running batch process is -detected. +detected on the current host machine. .Action.CheckErr @@ -1220,6 +1309,8 @@ has completed since the Results screen was brought up. The "Delete" button on the Results screen is used to remove the selected picture files from the filesystem. +Associated raw picture and z-buffer files +will also be deleted if they exist. Verification is required before any action is taken. .Results.Display @@ -1307,10 +1398,13 @@ details.) The print command window on the Results screen contains the system command to use in printing out finished Radiance pictures. The "%s" format field, which must appear somewhere in the command, -is replaced by the selected Radiance picture file name(s). +is replaced by the selected Radiance picture file name. +This command is executed multiple times if multiple files are +selected. The default command is "ra_ps %s | lpr", which converts the Radiance picture to a black and white PostScript file and sends it to the lpr print spooler. +Add a "-c" option to "ra_ps" if the printer supports color. If your printer does not understand PostScript, or your system does not support lpr, this command must obviously be changed.