[Radiance-general] Radiance tutorial (Was: MacosX and X11 and radiance and blender and brad)

[Greg Ward]

Wow, Axel.  I hadn't seen these tutorials before.  They're amazing!  
With your permission, I'd like to add them to the list of documents on 
radsite, which is unfortunately down at the moment.  This also 
dovetails with a discussion we've been having on the dev list about 
providing an interactive repository (or Wiki) for Radiance user 
documentation.  I know a lot of people don't subscribe to that list, so 
I'll summarize:

It started as a rehash of why Radiance authorship is restricted, and if 
there were any decent guidelines for code modifications, which is how 
it got on the dev list.  Then, people started suggesting things about 
how to set up documentation for the software, and it eventually came 
back to some kind of FAQ service for beginners.  The general feeling is 
that a lot of people who might otherwise be interested in Radiance are 
put off by the command-line structure, the scattered documentation, and 
the lack of any clear place to begin (aside from the book of course).  
After all, not everyone wants to order a book and wait for it to be 
shipped to their door just to decide whether or not it's worth the 
effort to learn something.

The current line of reasoning is to provide a forum where more 
experienced users could answer beginner's questions and have their 
answers continually available and editable.  There would also be a 
place for people to write essays on how they got started with Radiance, 
things to avoid, and things to pay attention to.  How-to manuals and 
tutorials such as Axel's would be a perfect jumping off point for a lot 
of newbies, I would think.  The current set of tutorials on radsite are 
getting a little "long in the tooth" so to speak, even if they still 
have a lot of useful information.

I think we're going back and forth right now trying to come up with the 
best way to set this up.  Some people have already set up their own 
resource centers, and we could either link to them or take some of 
their content into our own organization.  (See Georg Mischler's 
Lighting Wiki example at <http://lightingwiki.com/> as an example of 
what's already out there.)  Probably the best way to start is to write 
to me if you have some materials to offer, and I'll talk with Peter A-B 
about setting something up at radiance-online.

Thanks,
-Greg

> From: "Axel Jacobs" <a.jacobs at londonmet.ac.uk>
> Date: January 17, 2005 8:39:24 AM PST
>
> Johannes,
>
>> btw: is there a list like "recommended readings" for people who are
>> starting
>> to learn radiance? I would like to know, as an example, what kind of 
>> math
>> and physics people (really) have to know, and which books are 
>> recommended
>> therefor etc.
>> I have orderd the "The Art And Science Of Lighting Visualization" - is
>> everything (and more...) I (will) ask about inside this book?
>
> Make sure you also take a look at the LEARNIX web site:
> http://luminance.londonmet.ac.uk/learnix/
>
> Under "Documentation", you´ll find our course notes from the simulation
> module we teach on our masters course. We teach RADIANCE for lighting,
> ESP-r for thermal simulations.
>
> Oh, and DO give LEARNIX a spin!
>
> Cheers
>
> Axel