[Radiance-general] Sunlight through glass

[Jack de Valpine]

Hi Giullio and others following this thread,

<RANT MODE>
It seems to me that this is a problem with proprietary shrink wrap 
software renderers. Who really knows what is going on under the hood, 
whose word should be taken for the validity of the physical model, what 
validations have occurred?!

Users see the product marketing materials that talk about Global 
Illumination and "physical accuracy," and they believe the hype! That 
seems to me to be pretty dangerous if you are going to be using the tool 
to somehow "validate" design issues!

I know that there are systems that have implemented GI to varying 
degrees and sophistication. But the problem is you probably have to be 
an uber expert to use them and/or code up custom material/lighting 
shaders. Still though the question is what validation has occurred. I 
think that most commercial renderers and users of said systems are 
really not that interested in physical validity, they are most 
interested in the outcome/appearance of the final image. It does not 
really matter how it get there.

It seems to me that the one commercial product that showed some hope in 
its original (pre-acquisition) form was Lightscape. However, Rob 
Guglielmetti has explored and written pretty extensively on this topic 
seemingly with only partial satisfaction (my apologies to Rob G. for 
such a cursory summary, he did some really excellent work on this). Note 
I also believe that the original developers of Lightscape were truly 
interested in enabling people to use a tool with a reasonable and 
practical level of physical validity.
</RANT MODE>

Best,

-Jack

giulio antonutto wrote:

> About MR history and current situation ( 
> http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10185). 
> <http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10185%29.>
> Well the whole thing started a while ago when the promised and sold 
> the certainty to get a finished software for a certain time (last 
> September).
> This did not happened (they are still speaking of final candidate 
> version RC0.5 and so on).
> The software is not yet finished (it is not version 1.0).
> Not yet implemented on all the platform where was supposed to run (on 
> Mac is still beta although they promised something in the next '24' 
> hours) and doesn't support all the plug-ins for 3d application that 
> are indicated on the web page.
> This doesn't sound so appealing to me as well and I would understand 
> somebody delusion about the matter.
>
> Having said that, I also need to add that I requested (as other 
> friends did) details about the physical accuracy of the renderer.
> I never got an answer.
> Is it itself an answer?
> G.
>
> PS these are my personal opinions.
>
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-- 
# Jack de Valpine
# president
#
# visarc incorporated
# http://www.visarc.com
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# channeling technology for superior design and construction

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