Radiance Changelog

What's new in Radiance 5.0

Mar 5, 2017
  • Changed rmtxop so it writes out same type as lesser of inputs unless directed otherwise using -f? option.
  • Changed order of oconv arguments in rfluxmtx so user can specify input octree using -i option at the end instead of (or in addition to) a
  • list of scene files.
  • Added support for argument expansion to rfluxmtx and bug fixes.
  • Fixed bug in indirect hemisphere sampling for some corner cases.
  • Added default specular lobe to BSDF interpolation.
  • Set minimum number of shadow checks before direct optimization (4).
  • (Above changes included in 4.2.1 patch release.)
  • ****** COMPATIBILITY CHANGE ********
  • Made header input and output the default behavior for dctimestep and genskyvec.
  • ****** COMPATIBILITY CHANGE ********
  • Changed pabopto2bsdf default behavior to add 90-degree rotation to bring pgII's definition of "up" in line with Klems axis conventions. Introduced a new header variable "upphi" tocontrol this added rotation. Using "#upphi 90" in each BSDF input file gets back the original behavior, where it assumes that the up direction is 90-degrees from the X-axis. The default value of 0 corresponds to PAB's definition of the X-axis as being "up".
  • Fixed bug in rsensor related to having many rows (altitude) and few columns (azimuth) in sensitivity file.
  • Fixed floating point round-off error in new Hessian calculation for some sytems (Windows, primarily).
  • Fixed bug in tensor tree BSDF code that caused bus error on some systems, and may have been source of other errors as well.
  • (Above changes included in 4.2.2 patch release.)
  • Improved ambient extrapolation to avoid zero values. Actual threshold set to 5% of recorded value.
  • Changed anisotropic Gaussian and Ashikhmin models so that illegal orientation vectors are dealt with more gracefully.
  • Created wrapBSDF tool and incorporated into genBSDF along with new rfluxmtx computation.
  • Initial check-in of Roland Schregle's photon map integration. New 5.0a version designation as suggested by Andy McNeil.
  • Added left-hand coordinate sytems to rfluxmtx to correct problems with coordinate axis orientations pointed out by David Geisler-Moroder.
  • Added color output to genBSDF (+C option) and support for color rendering of Klems and tensor tree data.
  • Fixed another bug in rsensor that caused rays to be generated on opposite side of hemisphere even where sensitivity was zero.
  • Fixed bug discovered by Jacob Jonsson in Klems BSDF interpolator that caused it to over-predict normaltransmittance and reflectance.
  • Added ability to read input from commands in dctimestep and rmtxop.
  • Added photon map support to rad. Fixed some double-counting issues in photon-mapping spotted by David Geisler-Moroder.
  • Added photon map support to trad.
  • Fixed bug in antimatter source testing when antimatter definition follows potential obstructor in input.
  • Fixed issue with missing character type identifier at head of genBSDF XML output.
  • Prompted by Roland S., added option to have pcompos -a order rows from top rather than bottom of image.
  • Changed dctimestep to accept matrix as well as BTDF input in the VTDs invocation mode. This permits the output of
  • rmtxop to be used in a pinch when combining multiple BTDF layers, although interreflection between layers is not
  • accounted for properly as it is in the WINDOW program. Added Jan Wienold et al.'s evalglare to distribution.
  • Hopeful fix to deadlock issue under Mac OS X 10.10.x (Yosemite).
  • Fixed early exit of rcontrib with internal error (sample behind sender) discovered by Rob G.

New in Radiance 4.1 (Dec 10, 2011)

  • Changed ranimate behavior so remote login under a different user doesn't necessarily require the presence of the originating user's home directory.
  • Changed standard transmission function normalization back to what it was in version 3.5, following recommendation of David Geisler-Moroder, who pointed out that the revised BTDF increased too much at grazing.
  • Changed rad behavior with -N >1 on single view to call rpiece.
  • Updated SCons build system for MINGW compilation, thanks to Christian Kohler.
  • Added -u option to rlam for unbuffered output.
  • Modified dctimestep to accept sky vector and daylight coefficient matrix or list of images to sum together, as suggested by Andy McNeil.
  • Created genBSDF script to generate BSDF in Windows XML format.
  • Modified mkillum to accept detailed geometry from BSDF XML files.
  • Altered obj2rad to ignore zero normals (thanks to Jack de Valpine for suggestions and help).
  • Fixed bug in genklemsamp that caused non-uniform sampling over surfaces.
  • Fixed bugs in rhoptimize and rhcopy for 64-bit compilation.
  • Made a change to avoid problem using gcc --fast-math compile option.
  • COMPATIBILITY CHANGE: Changed behavior of rtrace and rtcontrib so that every scanline is not flushed when both -x and -y are set. This avoids flush delays in rtcontrib for large numbers of output files and delays while rendering images using rtrace with the -n option.
  • Added ability for rsensor to output ray origins and directions rather than actually loading octree and computing sensor value.
  • Fixed old bug in obj2rad where it would stop processing and report a syntax error if the "void" type is used in the map file.
  • Updated reflection model according to EGSR 2010 paper by David Geisler-Moroder and Arne Duer.
  • Replaced C-shell version of falsecolor with Perl script written by Axel Jacobs.
  • COMPATIBILITY CHANGE: Changed -sj (specular jitter) option to something called specular sampling (-ss), which if set less than 1 has the same behavior as the old -sj, but when set greater than 1, spawns multiple ray samples from semi-specular surfaces.
  • Fixed bug noticed by Randolph Fritz that caused ambient sync errors.
  • Fixed bug in findglare for reading picture files under Windows.
  • Added options to pvalue to note other color spaces on reverse conversion. Thanks to Erich Philips for the feature request.
  • Added BSDF data-driven material type with full sampling support.
  • Added BRDF calculations to genBSDF.
  • Bug fixes in rsensor thanks to help from David Geisler-Moroder.
  • Added variable-resolution BSDF support in renderers and genBSDF.
  • Created pkgBSDF program to extract BSDF geometry and put it together with surface description suitable for inclusion in a Radiance scene.
  • Muted warning for "no light sources found" when there is at least one glow object and interreflections are on (-ab > 0).
  • Fixed long-standing bug that caused underestimation of reflection when specular component was below -st threshold in non-metals.
  • Checked in cross-platform cmake build system created by Bill Hoffman of KitWare and sponsored by NREL. This includes a qt-based driver for rvu, which is built in the new subdirectory src/qtrvu.