POV-Ray: Newsgroups: povray.advanced-users: RCA file format

POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.advanced-users : RCA file format		Server Time 31 Oct 2024 16:17:52 EDT (-0400)

From: Mike Raiford
Subject: RCA file format
Date: 10 Oct 2005 11:08:53
Message: <434a8405$1@news.povray.org>

Could someone briefly explain to me the format of the file saved in the 
radiosity save_file directive.

This is what I know (or can reasonably guess): each line starts out with 
C1, then the X,Y,Z coordinates, a hex number, color values (I assume?) a 
couple extra floats, and another hex value.

-- 
~Mike

Things! Billions of them!

Post a reply to this message

From: Christoph Hormann
Subject: Re: RCA file format
Date: 10 Oct 2005 11:50:02
Message: <die2ba$lg3$1@chho.imagico.de>

Mike Raiford wrote:
> Could someone briefly explain to me the format of the file saved in the 
> radiosity save_file directive.

These files contain a text representation of the radiosity data tree 
generated by POV-Ray.  Direction vectors are stored in a special 
compressed form.  For the details you should have a look at the POV-Ray 
source code but for understanding most parts of it you need some deeper 
understanding of the inner workings of the radiosity feature.

Don't expect the format not to change in future versions of POV-Ray.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Landscape of the week:
http://www.imagico.de/ (Last updated 07 Oct. 2005)
MegaPOV with mechanics simulation: http://megapov.inetart.net/

Post a reply to this message

From: Mike Raiford
Subject: Re: RCA file format
Date: 10 Oct 2005 12:46:48
Message: <434a9af8$1@news.povray.org>

Christoph Hormann wrote:
> Mike Raiford wrote:
>> Could someone briefly explain to me the format of the file saved in 
>> the radiosity save_file directive.
> 
> These files contain a text representation of the radiosity data tree 
> generated by POV-Ray.  Direction vectors are stored in a special 
> compressed form.  For the details you should have a look at the POV-Ray 
> source code but for understanding most parts of it you need some deeper 
> understanding of the inner workings of the radiosity feature.

Thanks, that satisfied my curiosity, and I think I understand the format 
of the file a bit more, now. As I suspected, the compressed information 
exists in the hex numbers (normal and direction to source). The 2 values 
I didn't understand are distance values.

> Don't expect the format not to change in future versions of POV-Ray.

Understood :) I don't intend on releasing tools to deal with this file, 
but manly for my own personal meddling...

> Christoph
> 

-- 
~Mike

Things! Billions of them!

Post a reply to this message