[Radiance-general] HDR extension in rad, trad

[Greg Ward]

All suffixes in Radiance are just a convention, but since both  
Windows and Mac OS X look at the suffix as a first indication of file  
type, it's not a bad idea to standardize them.  The "hdr" suffix has  
definitely been picked up by the mainstream as a Radiance image file,  
while the "pic" suffix gets confused for other types on the different  
systems.  In this respect, I agree with Axel that it would be  
beneficial to change this convention, if people are OK with that.

Although I can see Rob's point that it's nice to have a suffix that  
uniquely identifies a Radiance-generated image from other possible  
sources, the de facto use of extensions does not support this these  
days.  An extension indicates the file type, not its creator.

If anyone else has a good reason why we should not switch to using  
".hdr" in place of ".pic" in rad/trad/etc. in the next release, now  
is the time to speak up.

-Greg

> From: Rob Guglielmetti <rpg at rumblestrip.org>
> Date: October 25, 2008 7:43:24 AM PDT
>
> On Oct 25, 2008, at 8:20 AM, Axel Jacobs wrote:
>>
>> trad still puts the old .pic extension on image files. The general
>> consensus nowadays seems to be to use .hdr. Since it's a quick
>> find-and-replace jobbie, may I propose to use this convention for rad
>> and trad as well. I'd be happy to send you patch.
>
> I rather like (and have become accustomed to, and have built  
> scripts around) the .pic extension referring to a raw Radiance- 
> generated image.  I dunno how everyone else feels, but with all the  
> available sources for hdr images, some of which we can call "hdr"  
> images, I'd rather keep our good old .pic extension as a Radiance  
> community standard.