[Radiance-general] Running multiple rpict commands for different scenes

[Sotiris Papantoniou]

Hello again Lars,

I have a script already working and giving results but, it is slow, taking
under consideration that is using only 1 core. The script, made in Matlab,
works in the following way

1) 5 embedded for (degrees of each blind and sun position)
2) creates a new folder
3) copying necessary 5 files to make the combination (1 of 1280)
4) copies the standard files (materials, geometry, view)
5) Oconv the files
6) rpict is creating the image and stores it to a standard folder with all
the results
7) go to number (1)

This is in general my script. It works but 7 minutes per simulation for 1280
simulation, equals...  90 hours. 

This is why I need the grid, and apart from that since I can run the
simulations in parallel (thank you for the info), I can save some time until
Radiance is installed, setup and test for many simulations.

Once again thank you for your time

Sotiris

-----Original Message-----
From: Lars O. Grobe [mailto:grobe at gmx.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2011 2:06 PM
To: Radiance general discussion
Subject: Re: [Radiance-general] Running multiple rpict commands for
different scenes

Hi!

> My idea is to run many simulations, for now up to 1200, in order to
> create data for a fuzzy system.  I have many simulations because I have
> a glass part of a building which has 4 sets of blinds which are
> autonomously controlled. If I am thinking correctly when the angle of
> each blind changes we have a new scene, which is separately simulated.
> For each scene I am running a new rpict command to see the result. I
> found out that in the University we have a grid-computer which is
> working on Linux. From the grid-computer web-site I read the following:

Two options:

A) Create your scene octrees, name them according to your parameters. 
Create a rif-file with the settings you use. In this rif-file, you use 
dummies names for the critical parameters that should not be shared 
(e.g. all file names including the ambient file). Write a script that 
loops through all the possible names (and thus setups), replaces the 
dummy by the current scene name, runs rad on the rif file. sed is a very 
useful command for doing so.

B) Create one rif file, and replace the varying parts of your scene (can 
be material definitions, geometry, ...) by shell commands (preceded by 
!) that produce the output. In the simplest way, this command can just 
return the value of an environment variable that is altered by your 
script. E.g. in your script, you set the variable myVariableMat="void 
plastic thisTimeItsWhite 0 0 5 1 1 1 0 0", and in your material 
definition file, you reference it by adding a line !echo $myVariableMat.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Lars.

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