[Radiance-general] Deterministic calculations with Radiance

[Greg Ward]

Yes, I could see doing this.  We would of course be accepting 
differences between versions and machines to some tolerance, but it 
should be sufficient for spotting any major regressions in the code or 
between releases.  The trick then is to have enough well-designed test 
scenes to cover all of the basic and some of the more esoteric features 
of Radiance.  (The "prism" and "BRTDfunc" primitives spring to mind.)

-Greg

> From: Randolph Fritz <randolph at panix.com>
> Date: February 9, 2005 4:32:13 PM PST
>
> Perhaps with carefully chosen models and parameters?  I would expect
> it to be possible to compare well-chosen test scenes with appropriate
> parameters between versions, as well as with actual physical models,
> so long as a random number generator of reasonable quality is used.
> Seems to me such combinations of scenes and parameters would be
> excellent testing and debugging tools.  (Having the physical models
> for comparison would be *most* excellent, but let us not assume there
> is a budget for them!)
>
> Randolph, still drowning here in Portland, Oregon.