[Radiance-general] Five-phase Method Tutorial: Errors in generating direct sun coefficient matrix

Greg Ward gregoryjward at gmail.com
Sun Mar 20 16:31:08 PDT 2016 

Responses inline...

> From: Alireza Hashemloo <alireh at uw.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Radiance-general] Five-phase Method Tutorial: Errors in generating direct sun coefficient matrix
> Date: March 20, 2016 3:45:01 PM PDT
> 
> Hi Greg,
> 
> Thank you for your response.
> 
> 1- I was unsuccessful in my attempt to download the files via the "curl" call. I received the error : "No such file or directory" followed by "curl: (23) Failed writing body (0 != 1460)". May I ask if you could send me the two xml files as
> an attachment to my email address?

The directory need to exist from where you run the curl command.  I.e., make sure the "bsdf" directory already exists.  Failing that, I will send you the files in an e-mail.

> 2- The tensor tree xml file (fullwindow_t45.xml) is generated via the following command:
> 
> $ genBSDF +f +b -geom meter -dim 0.5 3.5 1 2 -.3 0 -t4 5 bsdf/fullwindow.rad > bsdf/fullwindow_t45.xml
> 
> I can send you the related input files via a Google Drive link to your email address if that works for you in order to diagnose the cause for high reflection values.

Please e-mail me the files, which are not large.

> 3-  Generating the direct sun coefficient images, how can I generate a BSDF file with Klems' subdivision scheme with  higher resolution (each Klems' patch subdivided into four smaller patches) as a replacement to using a tensor-tree file?

There is no easy way to get more than 145 Klems patches with the current software.  Sorry!

> Thank you,
> Alireza
> 
> 
> On Sun, Mar 20, 2016 at 3:12 PM, Greg Ward <gregoryjward at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Alireza,
> 
> Did you generate the XML files yourself?  The ones I downloaded via the current version of the 5-phase bash script don't report this warning, which I would say indicates a problem.  You can download the XML files using:
> 
> 	curl -o bsdf/fullwindow_t45.xml http://www.radiance-online.org/learning/tutorials/fivephasetutorialfiles/fullwindow_t45.xml
> 	curl -o bsdf/fullwindow.xml http://www.radiance-online.org/learning/tutorials/fivephasetutorialfiles/fullwindow.xml
> 
> I can't speculate what is going wrong with your genBSDF command if you created these yourself, unless you send me the related input files.
> 
> Cheers,
> -Greg
> 
>> From: Alireza Hashemloo <alireh at uw.edu>
>> Subject: Re: [Radiance-general] Five-phase Method Tutorial: Errors in generating direct sun coefficient matrix
>> Date: March 20, 2016 1:54:42 PM PDT
>> 
>> Andy,
>> 
>> Thank you for your response. I have migrated to Mac in order to complete this step of the Five phase method tutorial.
>> I have pursued the tutorial with the exact scene descriptions and simulation settings.
>> I have encountered the following warning/error as follows:
>> 
>> after increasing the limit on the open files in Terminal via the "ulimit -n 9999" command, I have called the following command as shown in the tutorial:
>> 
>> Five-phase Method Tutoiral | Example 2 - Rendering | Direct Sun Coefficient Matrix (page 19) :
>> 
>> command:
>> 
>> $ vwrays -c 4 -pj 1 -fa -vf views/back.vf -x 500 -y 500 | \
>> rtrace -h- -opn -faa -ab 0 octs/model_nosuns.oct | \
>> rcontrib `vwrays -vf views/back.vf -x 500 -y 500 -d` -n $procs -fac -fo \
>> -o viewpics_ds/back_%04d.hdr -e MF:6 -f reinhart.cal -b rbin -bn Nrbins -m solar \
>> -c 4 -I -ab 1 -ad 100 -dt 0 -dc 1 -lw 1e-2 octs/model_suns.oct
>> 
>> Warnings:
>> 
>> rcontrib: warning - BSDF "bsdf/fullwindow_t45" has 169.4 % front reflection
>> rcontrib: warning - BSDF "bsdf/fullwindow_t45" has 218.8% rear reflection
>> 
>> 
>> Error Description:
>> 
>> Although the given rcontrib warnings do not terminate the command call, it does not appear to me that any progress is made leaving the command running for over 24 hours.
>> 
>> 
>> Question:
>> 
>> 1- What would be the reason for the tensor-tree BSDF file (fullwindow_t45.xml) generated in the previous steps of the tutorial  to have over 100% reflection as shown in the rcontrib warnings?
>> 2- How can I remedy this problem in this stage of the tutorial to generate the 5185 direct sun coefficient images?
>> 
>> Best Regards,
>> Alireza
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 7:25 AM, Andy McNeil <mcneil.andrew at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Alireza,
>> 
>> This behavior is consistent with running up against limitations on open files. I don't know how to change the limit on Windows, but found this:
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/870173/is-there-a-limit-on-number-of-open-files-in-windows
>> 
>> Andy
>> 
>> 
>> On Mar 9, 2016, at 12:53 AM, Alireza Hashemloo <alireh at uw.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Greg and Rob,
>>> 
>>> Thank you for your responses:
>>> 
>>> - It does not appear that the single back quotes are the source of the problem as I tested the command following your recommendation without passing the `vwrays -vf views/view_A.vf -x 600 -y 600 -d` to "rcontrib" and the rtrace "invalid argument" error still appears.
>>> 
>>> - I have tested the approach to split the command into two parts as you had suggested:
>>> 
>>> part 1:   vwrays -c 4 -pj 1 -fa -vf views/view_A.vf -x 600 -y 600 | rtrace -h -opN -fa -ab 0 model_nosuns.oct > points.txt
>>> part 2:   rcontrib -x 600 -y 600 -fac -fo -o viewpics_ds/back_%04d.hdr -e MF:4 -f reinhart.cal -b rbin -bn Nrbins -m solar -c 4 -I -ab 1 -ad 100 -dt 0 -dc 1 -lw 1e-2 model_suns.oct < points.txt
>>> 
>>> the part 1 appears to work properly considering that a "points.txt" file is generated. The part 2, however, does not appear to work: although I do not receive any error messages on my command line, the rcontrib call is completed immediately after it is run and 508 hdr images are generated in the given directory. However, each .hdr file is only 1 KB and the attempt to opening any of them is failed. It does not appear that the files have actually been written successfully.
>>> 
>>> In addition, could you elaborate about your suggestion to  " Replace the "-x 600 -y 600" with the output of "vwrays -vf views/view_A.vf -x 600 -y 600 -d" " in part 2 of the command?
>>> Finally,  I was wondering where the definition for the "solar" modifier as the target light source passed to the 'rcontrib' call (-m solar) is made in the previous steps of the tutorial?
>>> 
>>> Thank you for your help.
>>> Best Regards,
>>> 
>>> Alireza
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Mar 7, 2016 at 8:17 AM, Guglielmetti, Robert <Robert.Guglielmetti at nrel.gov> wrote:
>>> On 3/6/16, 9:53 AM, "Greg Ward" <gregoryjward at gmail.com<mailto:gregoryjward at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I do not think you can have multiple processes under Windows using rcontrib, no matter which shell you use, so -n 1 (the default) is all you get.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> That is true; rcontrib on Windows will silently ignore -n settings > 1.  On OpenStudio, you will get a heads up about this.
>>> 
> 
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