[Radiance-general] Re: Radiance workshop, etc.

[Georg Mischler]

> > easier application of picture mapping
> try to include the picture/texture mapping and the object on which it is
> mapped in one file. When placing this file with xform to an arbitrary
> position and orientation, the mapping function gets transformed
> automatically as well

Martin, have you checked out the "arbmap.cal" file included
with Rayfront? That normalizes the *orientation* of image
maps in space, so that they are always mapped flat onto the
respective surface. Of course you still need to make sure
that they appear at the right location in space (unless it's
a global mapping).

In general, the best approach for location specific mappings
(pictures hanging at the wall) is to create a seperate file
with the picture sufrace, and possibly the frame etc. Peters
genpic program does a nice job there for most situations.
Then transform that file to the right location, geometry,
mapping, and all.

Rayfront includes genpic binaries, and the "parts" mechanism
provides an easy way to place external objects in the scene.
And no, this is not all cheap advertizing, Martin maintains an
educational Rayfront license at PSU (whether he actually
uses it is another question, of course... ;)


> > reliable smoothing functions
> the smoothing option in e.g. gensurf (-s) works very well. I don't have
> any experience in cases when polygon meshes are imported from CAD
> programs, although I already thought about an independent smoothing
> process which could be let loose on any given polygon set.
> Question: does the smoothing generally get lost when importing stuff
> from, say, Autocad ?

Yes. That may eventually change once I have understood how
gensurfs smoothing actually works (doesn't seem to bee too
complicated, just that I didn't have the nerve to dig into
the topic yet).

It seems that Ole Lemmings ConRAD preserves smooting when
converting from 3D-Max files.


-schorsch

-- 
Georg Mischler  --  simulations developer  --  schorsch at schorsch.com
+schorsch.com+  --  lighting design tools  --  http://www.schorsch.com/