[Radiance-general] multiple processors

[Beeson, Brett]

Hi Francesco and all,

I've read through the mailing list archives and experimented with "rad
-N" and rpiece.  I'm using multiple CPUs and multiple machines on
'standard' linux distros - cannot use openmosix.

Two questions:

1. 
If I do this:
>rad -v single_view -N 5 myscene.rif
Rad will *not* split up my scene for me (using rpiece).  However, if I
specify multiple views, rad *will* run rpict multiple times
simultaneously (ie. as forked/backgrounded processes).
Is this expected behaviour? I was hoping it would split my scene!

2.
Usually I use RIF files to store my "scene=", "illum=", "zone="
variables, and to let rad handle calling oconv/rpict/pfilt/etc correctly
with appropriate settings.  

To divide up a scene, it seems I must use rpiece which calls rpict.
(Let's *assume* my NFS lockd is working okay).  Therefore I cannot use
rad and my rif files?  So I have to do what rad does *manually* and
incorporate rpiece into this process?

Many thanks,

Brett Beeson

CUNDALL
HSBC Building Level 20
300 Queen Street
Brisbane QLD 4000
tel:   +61 (0)7 3023 5048
fax:  +61 (0)7 3023 4000
www.cundall.com.au


-----Original Message-----
From: radiance-general-bounces at radiance-online.org
[mailto:radiance-general-bounces at radiance-online.org] On Behalf Of
Francesco Anselmo
Sent: 22 November 2005 18:55
To: Radiance general discussion
Subject: Re: [Radiance-general] multiple processors

Hi Nicholas,

There are many ways to run Radiance with multiple processors
and multiple machines. Some programs like rad and rholo have
support for multiple processors (-N option), rpiece can be used
to split a picture into tiles and have them rendered by different
processors or computers over a network (for instance sharing
the scene files with nfs).

Personally, I like to use openmosix with Radiance, and you can
read about my experience in a previous message to this mailing list:

http://www.radiance-online.org/pipermail/radiance-general/2004-August/00
1992.html

__
Francesco
pisuke at blueyonder.co.uk

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Brett Beeson
Sustainable Designer


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