VMD-L Mailing List

From: Tristan Croll (tristan.croll_at_qut.edu.au)
Date: Sat Jun 28 2014 - 06:28:46 CDT

That'll do nicely, and I'm an idiot.

Tristan

> On 28 Jun 2014, at 11:07 am, "Axel Kohlmeyer" <akohlmey_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> how about this?
>
>
>
> [akohlmey_at_zero ~]$ ~/lib/vmd/tachyon_LINUXAMD64 -h
> Tachyon Parallel/Multiprocessor Ray Tracer Version 0.99
> Copyright 1994-2011, John E. Stone <john.stone_at_gmail.com>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Unrecognized parameter/option flag: -h
> Usage:
> /home/akohlmey/lib/vmd/tachyon_LINUXAMD64 modelfile [options]
>
> Model file formats supported:
> filename.dat -- The model files originated with this package.
> filaname.ac -- AC3D model files.
> filename.nff -- The NFF scene format used by Eric Haines' SPD.
>
> Valid options: (** denotes default behaviour)
> ----------------------------------------------
> Message Options:
> +V verbose messages on
> -V verbose messages off **
>
> Speed Tuning Options:
> -raydepth xxx (maximum ray recursion depth
> -numthreads xxx (** default is auto-determined)
> -nobounding
> -boundthresh xxx (** default threshold is 16)
>
> Shading Options:
> -fullshade best quality rendering (and slowest) **
> -mediumshade good quality rendering, but no shadows
> -lowshade low quality rendering, preview (and fast)
> -lowestshade worst quality rendering, preview (and fastest)
>
> Lighting Options:
> -rescale_lights xxx rescale light intensity values by
> specified factor (performed before other
> lighting overrides take effect)
> -auto_skylight xxx force use of ambient occlusion lighting,
> auto-rescaling direct light sources to
> compensate for ambient occlusion factor.
> (use value 0.7 as a good starting point)
> -add_skylight xxx force use of ambient occlusion lighting,
> manually-rescaling direct light sources to
> compensate for ambient occlusion factor.
> -skylight_samples xxx number of sample rays to shoot.
>
> Specular Highlight Shading Options:
> -shade_phong Phong specular highlights
> -shade_blinn Blinn's specular highlights**
> -shade_blinn_fast fast approximation to Blinn's highlights
> -shade_nullphong disable specular highlights
>
> Transparency Shading Options:
> -trans_max_surfaces xxx Limit the number of transparent
> surfaces shown to the number specified
> -trans_orig Original implementation**
> -trans_raster3d Raster3D angle-based opacity modulation
> -trans_vmd Opacity post-multiply used by VMD
>
> Transparent Surface Shadowing Options:
> -shadow_filter_on Transparent objects cast shadows**
> -shadow_filter_off Transparent objects do not cast shadows
>
> Fog Shading Options:
> -fog_radial Radial fog implementation**
> -fog_vmd Planar OpenGL-like fog used by VMD
>
> Surface Normal/Winding Order Fixup Mode:
> -normalfixup [off | flip | guess] (**off is default)
>
> Antialiasing Options:
> -aasamples xxx (maximum supersamples taken per pixel)
> (** default is 0, or scene file determined)
>
> Output Options:
> -res Xres Yres override scene-defined output image size
> -o outfile.tga set output file name
> -clamp clamp pixel values to [0 to 1) (** default)
> -normalize normalize pixel values to [0 to 1)
> -gamma val normalize apply gamma correction
> -format BMP 24-bit Windows BMP (uncompressed)
> -format JPEG XXX Not compiled into this binary XXX
> -format PNG XXX Not compiled into this binary XXX
> -format PPM 24-bit PPM (uncompressed)
> -format PPM48 48-bit PPM (uncompressed)
> -format PSD48 48-bit PSD (uncompressed)
> -format RGB 24-bit SGI RGB (uncompressed)
> -format TARGA 24-bit Targa (uncompressed) **
>
> Animation Related Options:
> -camfile filename.cam Animate using file of camera positions.
> -nosave Disable writing of output frames to disk
> (only used for doing real-time rendering)
>
> Interactive Spaceball/SpaceNavigator Control:
> -spaceball Enable Spaceball/SpaceNavigator camera flight
> -spaceballport serialportdevicename (only for serial devices)
>
>> On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 7:54 PM, Tristan Croll <tristan.croll_at_qut.edu.au> wrote:
>> The deadly combination of laziness and curiosity strikes again!
>>
>> One further question: is there a good listing of all the available switches
>> for Tachyon available. It's the best renderer I think I've ever come across,
>> but online documentation seems relatively sparse.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Tristan
>>
>>
>>
>> Tristan Croll
>> Lecturer
>> Faculty of Science and Technology
>> Institute of Health and Biomedical Engineering
>> Queensland University of Technology
>> 60 Musk Ave
>> Kelvin Grove QLD 4059 Australia
>> +61 7 3138 6443
>>
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>>
>>
>> On 28 Jun 2014, at 1:44 am, "Josh Vermaas" <vermaas2_at_illinois.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Tristan,
>>
>> I think the string in the file render controls dialog gets passed directly
>> to the shell to be executed (at the very least, the text in that dialog box
>> never gets passed through a Tcl interpreter that I can see), so it dutifully
>> tried to execute tachyon (with passed parameter -res [expr 879. I'm not sure
>> why it didn't die when the first argument wasn't an integer) on the list of
>> files * 5] [expr 886 * 5]. The wildcards * are what got you into trouble,
>> since it will try to render everything in the current directory (twice no
>> less, since it appears in the argument list twice).
>>
>> What I tend to do is save the tachyon file and then run the renderer
>> externally if I want a crazy-big image. (render command = "echo hello", then
>> open a new terminal and run tachyon with all the options I want on the
>> created data file)
>>
>> Good luck!
>> -Josh Vermaas
>>
>> On 6/27/14, 12:12 AM, Tristan Croll wrote:
>>
>> So this is more of a humorous event than a bug that is going to really hurt
>> anybody. In order to render a bigger-than-screen-size image using the File
>> Render Controls dialog, I added:
>>
>> -res [expr 879 * 5] [expr 886 * 5]
>>
>> ... to the Tachyon input line, where 879 and 886 are the window dimensions
>> from running
>>
>> display get size
>>
>>
>>
>> Evidently this doesn’t work, since now Tachyon is busy attempting to render
>> all 481 files in the current directory (a couple of dozen of which are
>> actual Tachyon files), and I can’t kill it without killing my VMD instance.
>> It’s nearly done, thankfully...
>>
>>
>>
>> Anyway, after all that, I think a really nice feature to add to this dialog
>> would be a “screen size multiplier” box or drop-down menu, to make it easier
>> to render very large images without the need to know the specific syntax for
>> each renderer.
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>>
>>
>> Tristan
>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Axel Kohlmeyer akohlmey_at_gmail.com http://goo.gl/1wk0
> College of Science & Technology, Temple University, Philadelphia PA, USA
> International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste. Italy.