[Radiance-general] Greenhouse energy modeling

[Valerie Tan]

Hello,



My name is Valerie Tan and I am a undergrad designing greenhouse energy
modeling software for the Cornell Controlled Environment Agriculture group. I
am a computer science major (Cornell Engineering, Class of 2019) working
for the Cornell CEA group with Kale Harbick (researcher) and Kevin Ye (also
an undergrad). I am new to using the Radiance libraries and have questions
on the features and capabilities of Radiance. I have been, and will
continue to look through tutorials, archived mailing lists and
presentations.



We are implementing a ray-tracing and energy modeling component of the
NYSERDA funded GLASE project. See https://glase.cals.cornell.edu/ for a
brief synopsis.



I was given a big task of designing software that models a greenhouse and
calculates the total amount of light (from all directions, not just one
direction as in backwards ray-tracing) that reaches particular sample
points, given the geometry, weather, time of day, artificial light
configurations, etc. Imagine a typical greenhouse, with glass panels that
reflect and refract light, and a rectangular plot where you grow the
plants. We want to pick sample points on that rectangular plot and figure
out how much energy reaches that point. Ultimately, we want to model and
optimize everything such that all areas of the growing area receive optimal
and equal amounts of light.



My main question is, how do I make light calculations in micromoles instead
of lumens or RGB values? From what I've seen, Radiance appears to have this
type of focus, but I could be entirely wrong. (This is my first research
position and that I am still in the learning process of understanding
technical descriptions and tutorials.) The issue with lumens and RGB values
is that they are calibrated for human vision and are very difficult to work
with in terms of plant science, while micromoles measures the actual number
of photons. It looks like the "Photon map extension user manual" from the
website (
https://www.radiance-online.org/learning/documentation/photonmap-user-guide)
is a possible solution.



I really appreciate any kind of advice on using the Radiance libraries.
Thank you for your time and hope to hear from all of you.



Best,



Valerie

-- 
Valerie Tan
Computer Science
College of Engineering
Cornell University '19
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