Using the RadiosGL utilities
MakeHemicube
MakeHemicube is a command-line utility used to generate a hemicube file that can be passed into RadiosGL. A hemicube is half of a cube (think of a hemisphere) that is covered with "pixels". The hemicube is used when determining which patches are seen by a particular patch, and thus what light is hitting a particular patch. High-resolution hemicubes result in higher quality output, since determining which patches can be seen can be done more accurately. However, using a high-resolution hemicube can increase rendering time significantly. A hemicube is specified by its size, which is the number of pixels across the top of the cube. More information about hemicubes can be found in this offsite radiosity method description. Once a hemicube is generated and saved to disk, it can be used over and over to render different scenes.
On platforms with no command line (e.g., MacOS), MakeHemicube will read parameters out of the file MakeHemicube.ini. Calling MakeHemicube with no parameters or with the -? switch will bring up the following usage instructions:
usage:
MakeHemicube
[-?]
[-o output_file] pixel_width_of_cube
example:
MakeHemicube -o myHemicube 1000
Optional parameters are surrounded by [ ]. A description of each parameter follows:
| output_file | name of the HC file where the hemicube will be written |
| pixel_width_of_cube | the width of the top of the hemicube in pixels |
| output_file | name of an RGL file where the rendered scene will be written |
vrml2mdl
vrml2mdl is a command-line utility used to convert VRML files into the MDL format that can be passed into RadiosGL. Only VRML files containing just triangular colored patches are supported. Also, the scene must be split up into two separate VRML files, one containing light-emitting patches, and one containing patches that don't emit light. Note that this utility is a hack that was designed around VRML files outputted by Stomp3D, so it may not work properly with other VRML files
On platforms with no command line (e.g., MacOS), vrml2mdl will read parameters out of the file vrml2mdl.ini. Calling vrml2mdl with no parameters or with the -? switch will bring up the following usage instructions:
usage:
vrml2mdl
[-?]
-l vrml_lighting_patch_file
-r vrml_reflectance_patch_file
-m mdl_file -n total_num_patches
example:
vrml2mdl -l testLights.vrml -r testPatches.vrml -m out.mdl -n 24
Optional parameters are surrounded by [ ]. A description of each parameter follows:
| vrml_lighting_patch_file | VRML file containing light-emitting patches (patch color is interpreted as light color) |
| vrml_reflectance_patch_file | VRML file containing patches that don't emit light |
| mdl_file | output MDL file |
| total_num_patches | total number of patches in scene (lighting plus reflectance patches) |