I'd like to set up my home computer such that, by using minimal 
software* on another system, I can send my home computer an SDL file, 
have it render, and retrieve the resulting image.

I'm running Windows XP Pro at home.

Does anyone have a suggestion for how to do this?

*Minimal software means nothing that isn't included on almost every 
comptuer out there.  I won't be able to install anything on the remote 
systems - typically shared systems at the library or work.  Ideally, 
nothing more than a web browser and/or FTP client, *possibly* a terminal 
shell (I don't know if it'll be available or not).

...Chambers

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Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> I'd like to set up my home computer such that, by using minimal 
> software* on another system, I can send my home computer an SDL file, 
> have it render, and retrieve the resulting image.

> I'm running Windows XP Pro at home.

  This would probably be relatively easy to do in linux (or any other
flavor of unix), but I really can't help you in the case of XP...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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486a462c$1@news.povray.org...
> I'd like to set up my home computer such that, by using minimal software* 
> on another system, I can send my home computer an SDL file, have it 
> render, and retrieve the resulting image.
>
> I'm running Windows XP Pro at home.
>
> Does anyone have a suggestion for how to do this?

You could use the scheduler to launch POV-Ray at a given time, and then send 
the file by FTP before the launch and get the file back by FTP too. Of 
course you need to send the file at the right moment...
OTOH here's a how to with Remote Desktop 
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-22_11-5362390.html?tag=rbxccnbtr1 
but apparently it can be tricky.

G.

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Chambers schrieb:
> I'd like to set up my home computer such that, by using minimal 
> software* on another system, I can send my home computer an SDL file, 
> have it render, and retrieve the resulting image.
> 
> I'm running Windows XP Pro at home.
> 
> Does anyone have a suggestion for how to do this?

Depending on how much you want to install on your home computer for this 
and how much programming you or a friend can do, you could install a 
webserver and write a small web application (PHP, Perl, you name it). If 
you want to get really ambitious it could easily start more than one 
render, display status information and partly rendered images as well as 
allow the passing of commandline-options to povray. Be sure to protect 
this somehow though, it would be a rather big security hole if you don't.

Manuel

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Manuel Kasten schrieb:
> Chambers schrieb:
>> I'd like to set up my home computer such that, by using minimal 
>> software* on another system, I can send my home computer an SDL file, 
>> have it render, and retrieve the resulting image.
>>
>> I'm running Windows XP Pro at home.
>>
>> Does anyone have a suggestion for how to do this?
> 
> Depending on how much you want to install on your home computer for this 
> and how much programming you or a friend can do, you could install a 
> webserver and write a small web application (PHP, Perl, you name it). If 
> you want to get really ambitious it could easily start more than one 
> render, display status information and partly rendered images as well as 
> allow the passing of commandline-options to povray. Be sure to protect 
> this somehow though, it would be a rather big security hole if you don't.

P.S.

If you have access to a terminal shell with ssh, the cygwin project 
includes a ssh server for windows. That would enable you to use sftp to 
transfer files and a ssh shell to start your renders. Be sure to look 
into screen as well, comes very handy in these cases.


Links:

http://www.en.wampserver.com/
http://www.cygwin.com/
http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/ (just for reference, installable 
from cygwin)

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"Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote in message 
news:486a462c$1@news.povray.org...
> I'd like to set up my home computer such that, by using minimal software* 
> on another system, I can send my home computer an SDL file, have it 
> render, and retrieve the resulting image.
>
> I'm running Windows XP Pro at home.
>
> Does anyone have a suggestion for how to do this?
>
> *Minimal software means nothing that isn't included on almost every 
> comptuer out there.  I won't be able to install anything on the remote 
> systems - typically shared systems at the library or work.  Ideally, 
> nothing more than a web browser and/or FTP client, *possibly* a terminal 
> shell (I don't know if it'll be available or not).
>
> ...Chambers

I didn't try doing this, but I'm not aware of any insurmountable issues, so 
long as you have a machine that can be connected to from elsewhere (e.g. one 
with a fixed IP address), otherwise it gets trickier. It might take a bit of 
work if it has to be tidy and resilient, but if it's just for casual use 
then I don't think it should be too difficult.

If you leave POV-Ray running on your home machine and you have 'keep single 
instance' selected then you can render a scene by calling pvengine.exe from 
a DOS prompt (pvengine.exe /render "Full file path") without the splash 
screen popping up each time. There's also a warning message where you'll 
need to select "don't tell me this again", otherwise it'll wait for user 
input. The POV-Ray application will pop to the front and could therefore be 
a little irritating for anyone using the home machine at the time, but it 
should render ok. If you don't leave POV-Ray running I think it'll take a 
few seconds more because it displays the splash screen for about 5 seconds 
on launch.

Option 1: You could have a simple OS script running continuously to monitor 
a directory for new scene files and render them. By default the image would 
be written back into the same directory. There are lots of ways to put the 
file into the directory from a remote machine and get the image back from 
that directory. For example, you could run an FTP server on your machine, 
exposing just that one directory.

Option 2: You could write something similar using an HTTP server that would 
allow you to upload a file through a form using a standard Web browser and 
use the browser to view the resulting image. If you use an HTTP server you'd 
need a server script (e.g. in PHP) but it should be able to render the file 
the moment it is uploaded rather than having to monitor the directory for 
new files. You should also be able to pass in some command line options in 
case you want to do animation or adjust the image size.

Regards,
Chris B.

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Chambers wrote:
> Does anyone have a suggestion for how to do this?

Remote Desktop?

Log in remotely, copy/paste the SDL file over the RDP link, run the 
render, copy/paste the image file back again?

Note that Remote Desktop (both client and server) come with XP Pro (and 
all higher, of course), so why this MCSE thinks it's difficult I can't 
imagine. You *do* have to tunnel the RDP port (3389 I think?) thru your 
NAT to your box, and you do have to enable it in control->system, but 
other than that, it's really exceedingly trivial to make work. (make 
sure the rdpclip service is running if you want to copy and paste files 
between your local machine and your remote machine.)

The RDP client on Linux (at least the one I use) works fine too, except 
I don't think it supports the rdpclip stuff, so you'd need a different 
way to get files on and off. Set up the Windows FTP server, or GuildFTP?

Otherwise, doing something like setting up a web server at home you can 
post a file to would do the trick.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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IIRC, the Windows Script Host supports such things as unattended software
installs and distribution/installation via a network, so you might be able to
get it to do what you want. I've never done this myself, though.

-Mike

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Warp wrote:
>   This would probably be relatively easy to do in linux (or any other
> flavor of unix), but I really can't help you in the case of XP...

I do this all the time with Linux.  I use ssh to edit files and render 
them at the command line to a specific location readable by my 
webserver.  Then I can just look at the image with my browser.  With a 
ssh server for windows and apache you could probably do the same thing.

-- 
-The Mildly Infamous Blue Herring

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