[Radiance-general] Radiance Project Organization

[Kirk Thibault]

Thomas - First of all, thanks for the effort. This request falls sort  
of in between lighting and textures, but do you plan to support  
Blender's IBL capabilities, using HDR images for global  
illumination?  As Blender already already permits you to set up this  
environment, it would be great to be able to specify this in a  
Radiance export from Blender.  Can't wait to see what you cook up!

Thanks,

kirk


On Jul 10, 2005, at 9:42 AM, Thomas Bleicher wrote:


> Hello everyone.
>
> I'm currently developing a new interface for Radiance for the
> free 3D modeling suite Blender. Screenshots and a very early
> version can be found at
>
>     http://home.arcor.de/tbleicher/exif/index.html
>
> Please note that you should know something about Blender, Python
> and Linux if you want to install the current version.
>
> Among other things it supports IES data import and the import
> of Radiance material descriptions (very limited at the moment).
> Both are organized in some sort of "library" backend. Now I'm
> looking for a good idea how to organize and populate these libraries.
> I think I'll find the most experienced users here on this list so I'm
> asking the community at large:
>
> about luminaire data:
>
> *) Which features would you like to see in a data browser?
>
> *) Is there a common standard for information exchange beyond
>    IES, TM14 and Eulumdat(*.ldt)? Particularly I'm looking for
>    some sort of database for luminaire, lamptype and geometry
>    data or images. It seems like every manufacturer has it's
>    own standard and presentation utility.
>    I know there is a project call "DIALUX" which seems to be
>    supported by a lot of manufacturers (at least in Europe) but
>    I don't know if it's actually very popular.
>
> *) How do you organize luminaire data in your projects?
>    Do you pre-select the files to use in the project and only
>    handle a small quantitiy of datafiles or do you use
>    (centralized) repositories (by type, by manufacturer)?
>
> about materials:
>
> *) Do you use simple material descriptions or is there no
>    end in complexity (modifiers, *.cal files etc.)?
>
> *) Do you rely on CAD exporters (and how they handle the material
>    assignment) or do you hand edit materials?
>
> *) Where do your material definitions come from? Messurements,
>    handed down for generations and guarded carefully in the family
>    vault, fiddling until it "looks right"?
>
> *) Do you use image based textures?
>
>
> I hope some of you can share their experiences and information
> on these things. If you have other ideas or a wishlist for a
> Radiance interface I'd be glad to hear about it. I try to keep
> the parts of my code as separate as possible so libraries etc.
> may be useable without the Blender iterface as well.
>
>
> Thanks for your interest,
>
> Thomas
>
> PS: I am well aware of "b/rad" by Francesco Anselmo. So far we
>     had different targets in developing our interfaces but in
>     the near future we hope to join our efforts. No one likes
>     to be second in inventing the wheel ;)
>
>
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