Radiance software - physically based light simulation
Light simulations and rendering at pab-opto currently use mostly the
Radiance Synthetic Image System.
Radiance offers light simulation based on physical laws and generating quantitative results
(radiance, irradiance, luminance, illuminance
).
links and talks on Radiance and BRTF/BSDF data
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invited lectures at the 10th Radiance workshop, 2011 Berkeley:
measuring & modelling BSDF step 1: Radiance plastic, metal, trans parameters based on material data
some thoughts on future of BSDF materials, models & Radiance
(including thoughts on error bounds and precision in simulation)
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July 2011: started BSDF,BRTF database of some building materials at www.pab.eu/bme
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invited extended lecture on principles, measuring and modelling of BRTFs / BSDF
at the 9th Radiance workshop, 2010 Freiburg.
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pab-opto inaugurated and managed Radiance-Online from August 2000 to
July 2006. During the 6 years it evolved from an unofficial ''pirate''-state, inaugurated during a crisis of official Radiance
distribution, to the official software archive. Plus multiple mailing lists with approx. 300 users.
The server had been physically shipped to LBNL (Lawrence Berkeley Lab) in June 2007 and is managed by LBNL staff since then.
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talk on gonio-photometer II updates in 2006
5th International Radiance Workshop, September 2006
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talk on material modelling at the
Third International Radiance Workshop, October 2004
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quantitative test of Radiance's photon-map extension (forward raytracing)
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talk on material modelling at the
First International Radiance Workshop, September 2002
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introduction to the
BRTF and material modelling (2002)
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Radiance simulation of Kimbell Art Museum (2000)
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talk about light simulation (in German)
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case study: modelling (laser) range scanners
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Additionally to what is offered by the standard Radiance package, we use a substantial amount of proprietary extensions and tools.
Some of these tools are publicly available.
Radiance features
- quantitative results (both images and singular values)
- validated by various studies
- considers most light paths: indirect illumination and optionally caustics (extra module)
- scales well with large scenes (millions of objects)
- code is public and open source, making it possible to verify algorithms directly
- extended rendering: depth-of-field, stereo images and animations
Author's experience with Radiance has been accumulating since Radiance Revision 1.2 in March 1990.
First at Fraunhofer Institute for solar Energy, than at pab-opto.