[Radiance-general] Re: pmap

[Jan Wienold]

Hi Axel,

Axel Jacobs wrote:

>> > I believe the latest iteration of pmap is the module Carsten 
>> integrated
>> > with his Radzilla, yes.  Haven't heard from Roland in a while...
>
>
>> I found that there is even no pmap for 3.8? The learnix-distribution
>> mentions that pmap is not supported any more in their radiance set-up
>> and available only in radzilla (which is in learnix)
>
>
> I contacted Jan over pmap when I started working on the latest LEARNIX
> around September last year. He was very busy at the time (and probably
> still is) with his PhD. He was about to talk to their programmer about
> some minor changes he liked to see implemented in pmap on top of the
> obvious adjustments necessary to move it from Radiance 3.7 to 3.8. Seems
> that Jan has just been too busy.
>
Yes,  I'm really sorry for that! I'm still working on my PhD, now 
parallel to projects, which is really difficult.

We had to develop a virtual goniophotometer for pmap in order to 
generate btdfs for special materials. At the first stage, we thought, 
that we had to make some changes to pmap to realize that project. Then, 
it would have been no big deal to make the changes to 3.8. But then it 
came out, that we didn't have to make changes for that. And besides 
this, at that time we got some new (non-radiance related) projects for 
our programmer and therefore the "upgrade" of pmap from 3.7 to 3.8 
unfortunately sloped down in the priority list.

For us it is really difficult to maintain software, when no related (and 
financed) projects are available. Additionally the author of  pmap, 
Roland Schregle, is not at the institute any more, which increases for 
us the needed effort to make changes on the code.
Besides the financial aspects,  our programmer is "loaded" at the moment 
with more than 120% with other projects until fall of the year, so I 
don't see a quick solution for that.
So in the next months, we can  maintain pmap only , if bugs encounter.

I really support your and Lars'  wish to include it in main tree!
The question is, how? We need a volunteer, who is maintaining it.
This is the main issue. License is absolutely no problem.

Jan


> Carsten Bauer was kind enough to tweak the 3.7 pmap so it would compile
> with 3.8. I did, however, decide not to ship it with LEARNIX since it was
> not officially endorsed by the maintainer. This tough decision was
> eased by the fact that one or two of the test routines shipping with pmap
> failed.
>
> As regards to Radzilla (radzilla/RADZILLA ???) -- There are three 
> types of
> photons in pmap, of which Carsten implements two. Don't ask me what they
> are and when you need them. I guess that the third, unimplemented type is
> not used very often, otherwise it would probably be there in Radzilla.
>
> Because of LEARNIX, I have been following the progression of RZ very
> closely and am pleased to report that it has improved tremendously over
> the last 6 months. However, one thing that you always must remember is
> that RZ is a complete re-write of Radiance 'classic' in C++. While the
> algorithms are obviously the same, RZ has not seen as much bug-testing 
> and
> validation as 'Classic' has enjoyed over the years. This is also true for
> the pmap plug-in. I am not saying that RZ is buggy, but it might be an
> issue. Carten actually considers RZ 'alpha'.
>
> So, to cut a long story short: Unless you go back to R 3.7, there is no
> 'official' pmap for Radiance. I would personally very much like to see
> pmap integrated into the main Radiance tree and available with the same
> download, but there are probably issues (license, maintainership, coding
> style etc.) that have prevented this from happening. So far, anyhow.
>
> Axel
>
> _______________________________________________
> Radiance-general mailing list
> Radiance-general at radiance-online.org
> http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general



-- 
Dipl.-Ing. Jan Wienold
Project Manager
Fraunhofer-Institut für Solare Energiesysteme
Thermal Systems and Buildings, Lighting and Daylighting
Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110 Freiburg, Germany
Phone: +49(0)761 4588 5133 Fax:+49(0)761 4588 9133
jan.wienold at ise.fraunhofer.de
http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de

In office: 
Mo,Tue: 9:00-18:00
We-Fr:  8:30-14:00