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Rayfront 1.0 User Manual

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Converting Geometry Data

Since Rayfront is exclusively a simulation package, we need some way to create and convert the geometry data that we want to work with. There are several possibilities to do this.

Autocad/Intellicad Integration

The most convenient way is to run Rayfront as an Autocad/Intellicad extension. Check Operation within Autocad/Intellicad for details.

Data Import

The "Import" menu offerst two possibilities to get geometry data into Rayfront.

Foreign Scene Geometry...
This function reads external files that are created in the Radiance scene file format or have been converted to it somehow.
DXF Geometry...
This function reads external files in the DXF file format, which is a very common exchange format for geometry data.

Convert Data

If you don't have your data in one of the above formats, there are many ways to convert them. Rayfront includes the following command line tools to convert geometry data to Radiance scene file format:

Archicad2rad
Convert from RIF files as created by some versions of Archicad (by Paul Bourke).
arch2rad (pdf)
Convert Architrion text files.
mgf2rad (pdf)
Convert "Material and Geometry" (mgf) files.
obj2rad (pdf)
Convert Wavefront object files.
thf2rad (pdf)
Convert GDS "things" files.
tmesh2rad (pdf)
Convert a triangular mesh.

Generators

As a last resort, it is entirely possible to write Radiance scene files manually, as they are just plain text files in a special format. To make this easier, you can use so called "generators", which are little programs that create parts of a scene.

The following generators are included with the package, and recognized correctly when imported from Rayfront:

genblinds (pdf)
Generate a Radiance description of venetian blinds.
genbox (pdf)
Generate a Radiance description of a box.
genrev (pdf)
Generate a Radiance description of a surface of revolution.
gensurf (pdf)
Generate a Radiance description of a curved surface.
genworm (pdf)
Generate a Radiance description of a functional worm.
genpyr (pdf)
Generate a Radiance description of a square based pyramid (by Abraham Yezioro).
genshell (pdf)
Generate a Radiance description of a membrane (by Abraham Yezioro).
genwedge (pdf)
Generate a Radiance description of a wedge (by Abraham Yezioro).
triangulate
Triangulate a surface over a set of 3D points (by Paul Bourke).
gensuperellipse
Generate a Radiance desciption of a superellipsoid (by Paul Bourke).
genarch
Generate an architectural arch. (by Paul Bourke).
gencolumn
Generate an architectural column. (by Paul Bourke).
genlinearstairs
Generate architectural spirail stairs. (by Paul Bourke).
genspiralstairs
Generate architectural linear stairs. (by Paul Bourke).
genvault
Generate an architectural vault. (by Paul Bourke).

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