[Radiance-general] pmap & photon ports

[Carsten Bauer]

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> Still, almost every architectural simulation includes obstruction from 
> nearby building, trees etc. Now, as far as I understand the manual, 
> these obstructions would only influence my scene following a visibility 
> test (so either blocking light or not), but e.g. the surface 
> characteristics of geometry such as reflectance would be neglected. Is 
> this the case?

Hi Lars,

yes, this is the sad thruth. Considering reflections and what else may happen in the exterior area would in fact mean performing an extra photon distribution run to determine those photons which finally hit the port, no matter which way they took to get there. 

One way to circumvent this problem would be performing a classic mkillum-run for the daylight opening surface to consider all external interreflections, and then use this mkillum generated source as photon emitter (in this case, the redirection system should be located on the 'inside' of the mkillum source, i.e. not included in the mkillum distribution..)

-cb