[Radiance-general] Simulating rooms with blinds: performance

[Randolph M. Fritz]

I've been working with a simple model for glare studies, based on an 
LBL test room with blinds.  The results are looking pretty good, but as 
soon as I put the blinds into the model, single-case simulation times 
went up to 2.5-3.5 hours.  Does anyone have any feeling for these 
times?  Are they reasonable for a naïve model or too high?  The 
processor used is a quad-core AMD Opteron 2376 (2300 MHz) and I've been 
using Delaunay's implementation of the Perez sky model, gendaylit, and 
calculating five ambient bounces.

Possible lines of attack on the problem:
-- Using genBSDF/mkillum (suggested by a colleague.)
-- Simplify the blind model; use flat rather than curved slats.
-- Review the rtrace parameters I am using.  I'm rereading John 
Mardaljevic's chapter in RwR on Daylight Simulation, looking for hints, 
but Mardaljevic (are you out there?) was primarily working with 
overcast skies, which aren't adequate for glare models, so I'm not sure 
how much of his advice still applies.  I'm also going to be sweeping 
the archives of this mailing list for ideas.

Anyone have additional suggestions?  Any thoughts on which to try 
first?  Are there particular articles it might be helpful to look at?
-- 
Randolph M. Fritz • RFritz at lbl.gov
Environmental Energy Technologies Division • Lawrence Berkeley Labs