[Radiance-general] Re: Re: transform from Radiance to PPM file

[Greg Ward]

Hello Qing,

There are many options for getting the output of rtrace and converting 
it to an image.  I would first echo Peter's question, which is why you 
are not using rpict?  If it is because you cannot generate the image 
you want, be sure you have explored all of the view types (-vt?) and 
options rpict has to offer from the man page.  If you do not have the 
man pages installed on your system, you can always get them from the 
online versions (slightly out of date) at LBNL:

	http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/refer/index.html#cat2

If you want to create a Radiance picture from rtrace, the simplest 
method is to specify the horizontal and vertical resolutions on the 
rtrace command line, and use the -fac output option, like so:

	% rtrace -ov -fac -x $xsiz -y $ysiz $octree < $input_rays > $output_pic

where the variables xsiz, ysiz, octree, input_rays, and output_pic are 
set appropriately.  The second option is to output the standard 
floating point values, and convert the result with the pvalue program, 
like so

	% rtrace -ov $octree < $input_rays | pvalue -r -y $yres +x $xres -d > 
$output_pic

There is no real advantage to using this method, however.  And as I 
said, there is no real advantage to using rtrace over rpict, either, 
unless you absolutely cannot generate the view you want with rpict.

-Greg