[Radiance-general] Modeling Challenge

[Mark de la Fuente]

Hi Radiance group.
 
I've got a modeling problem.  I'm trying to accurately create this... but so far all I've managed to do is waste a bunch of time.
 
http://members.fortunecity.com/dela/
 
(note the bottom image is a radiance image)
 
Currently I have two individual cylinders each as a rad file.  Then I have a scene file that xforms these into a ~16,000 unit array.  That file is then rotated and transformed onto the building by an additional scene file, which is then called by oconv by a "rad" like script.
 
It works, but it takes a very long time to oconv (I guess b/c it has to run xform 16000 times and Radiance on Cygwin is very slow at this based on benchmark results) and so far I have been unable to create an actual rendering for some reason.
 
What other options might work for something like this?  I've thought about using a mix of void and metal similar to Georg Mischler's perforated metal technique.  Would this be more efficient?
 
My only concern about a flat plane is that you would not get the same "cut off" as the 3D grid.  However, given the small scale of the grid to the large scale of the building, this is perhaps negligible.
 
{
	perforate.cal
    Perforation function for approximately horizontal sufaces,
	for use in a mixfunc. Foreground is solid, background the holes.
	Set background to empty for a true perforation, or to a different
	material for polka dots.

	Relative hole size is determined by A1.
    Size of single circle is 1 - scale as required (eg. 0.05m).

	x_hole cuts holes in x-direction (through the y-z plane)
	y_hole cuts holes in y-direction (through the x-z plane)
	z_hole cuts holes in z-direction (through the x-y plane)

    Georg Mischler 30. 04. 1993
}

`xn = mod(Px, 1) - 0.5;
`yn = mod(Py, 1) - 0.5;
`zn = mod(Pz, 1) - 0.5;

`outofcirc(x, y, r) = if(sqrt(x*x + y*y) - r, 1, 0);

z_hole = `outofcirc(`xn, `yn, A1);
x_hole = `outofcirc(`yn, `zn, A1);
y_hole = `outofcirc(`zn, `xn, A1);

{ end of perforate.cal }

Is there anything similar that would create the type of grid I'm looking for?
 
Thanks for any assistance!
 
Mark de la Fuente

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