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Torad Home Page

Manual page, Complete reference and user guide.
FAQ, frequently asked Questions about torad.
Download torad as Zip file.
Download torad as compressed tar file.

What is Torad:

Torad is an autolisp application for Autocad R11-R14 for exporting geometry data to the RADIANCE lighting simulation package.

Basic features of torad are:

Makes complete translation of all hiding/shading entities from Autocad (and some more).
Entities can be selected on screen for partial export.
Entities will be sorted by one of the three criteria color, layer or insertion layer of blocks (toplayer) according to your choice. The sorting results in seperate files written for every layer or color. Floating layers and colors within blocks are fully supported.
Other files created optionally can contain initial material definitions (all identical), a list of "!cat" commands to include all the information to make up a complete scene description, a setup of natural lighting, a view description and a makefile for automatic image creation.
Only the entities that are visible (that is their layer is on and thawed) will be exported, even when nested in a selected block. This gives you another method of filtering elements of your drawing especially usefull when you want to update only part of a scene.
The layername or color number will be part of each respective filename to make it an unique identifier.
You have full control through a sreen menu section, a text dialog or even a interactive dialog box if you are running Autocad 12.

Entities exported (by choice):

    Autocad entities:            radiance objects:

    - 3dfaces                    -  triangular or quadrilateral polygons.
    - extruded or flat traces    -  triangular and/or quadrilateral polygons.
    - extruded or flat solids    -  triangular and/or quadrilateral polygons.
    - extruded or flat circles   -  rings and quadrilateral polygons.
    - extruded arcs              -  quadrilateral polygons.
    - extruded lines             -  quadrilateral polygons.
    - extruded 2d-plines         -  quadrilateral polygons.
    - wide 2d-plines             -  multilateral polygons.
    - closed 2d-plines           -  multilateral polygons.
    - 3d-meshes                  -  triangular or quadrilateral polygons.
    - polyfaces                  -  triangular or quadrilateral polygons.
    - points                     -  spheres or bubbles.

torad is optimized for speed and memory usage as far as possible without loosing the functionality of sorting entities to seperate files. If you still consider it to be too slow, you will have to resort to Radout, a transscript of torad to ADS-C by Philip Thompson at MIT.
There is also a user interface in the works for radout (and radiance), which will allow to control most of the rendering parameters from within autocad.

the complete program consists of eight files:

    Program files:
        torad.lsp       Main program source file.
        esample.lsp     Entities sampling and conversion source file.
        vector.lsp      Geometrical utilities source file.
        torad.dcl       Dialog box definition file for Autocad 12.
        torad.mnu/x     Menu file for setup with Autocad 10/11.

    Additional Files: 
        torad.man       User manual. 
        torad.README    This file.

All these files are packaged in both a compressed tar file and a zip archieve to make them easily accessible for users of each unix and dos systems.

"support"

I expect the program and the manual to be self explanatory for users who have at least some experiance with either Autocad, Radiance or better both of them. If there still remain questions that cannot be answered neither through the manuals and FAQs to Autocad, RADIANCE or torad nor by the local guru, you might try to mail me at the address below.

Be sure to notify me if you think you have found a bug in this program (there still might be some although thoroughly tested).

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