Still trying to get some practical knowledge about photon mapping. Simple
question this time... Is there any easily available method or tool to
visualize saved photon data? By that, I mean seeing a visual representation
of the photons stored. (much of the literature of photon mapping shows such
represnetations - ie, Figure 5.4 of Realistic Image Synthesis Using Photon
Mapping)

Since it's 3D data (right?) it's not like you can open up the ".ph" file in
GIMP (etc.) and expect to see anything. Even just a way to do a planar
projection of the data would be great. It seems like a simple enough thing
to do that surely it exists

I've already tried the only solution obvious to me - render the scene
loading the saved photon file, removing all light source definitions, and
setting all ambient terms to 0. Is there some better/easier way I'm
missing?

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"Jim" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Still trying to get some practical knowledge about photon mapping. Simple
> question this time... Is there any easily available method or tool to
> visualize saved photon data? By that, I mean seeing a visual representation
> of the photons stored. (much of the literature of photon mapping shows such
> represnetations - ie, Figure 5.4 of Realistic Image Synthesis Using Photon
> Mapping)
>
> Since it's 3D data (right?) it's not like you can open up the ".ph" file in
> GIMP (etc.) and expect to see anything. Even just a way to do a planar
> projection of the data would be great. It seems like a simple enough thing
> to do that surely it exists
>
> I've already tried the only solution obvious to me - render the scene
> loading the saved photon file, removing all light source definitions, and
> setting all ambient terms to 0. Is there some better/easier way I'm
> missing?

no

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Jim nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2007/10/14 17:25:
> Still trying to get some practical knowledge about photon mapping. Simple
> question this time... Is there any easily available method or tool to
> visualize saved photon data? By that, I mean seeing a visual representation
> of the photons stored. (much of the literature of photon mapping shows such
> represnetations - ie, Figure 5.4 of Realistic Image Synthesis Using Photon
> Mapping)
> 
> Since it's 3D data (right?) it's not like you can open up the ".ph" file in
> GIMP (etc.) and expect to see anything. Even just a way to do a planar
> projection of the data would be great. It seems like a simple enough thing
> to do that surely it exists
> 
> I've already tried the only solution obvious to me - render the scene
> loading the saved photon file, removing all light source definitions, and
> setting all ambient terms to 0. Is there some better/easier way I'm
> missing?
> 
> 
> 
Not that I can think of. You may need to add media if you have media photons.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone.

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Thanks for your responses. On the one hand, I'm glad I didn't miss anything.
On the other hand, I'd really like to be able to "see" photons and more
about how they are stored in POV. Perhaps this is something I will look
into further.

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> Thanks for your responses. On the one hand, I'm glad I didn't miss 
> anything.
> On the other hand, I'd really like to be able to "see" photons and more
> about how they are stored in POV. Perhaps this is something I will look
> into further.

Maybe you could look at the source code and see what the format is for the 
saved photons file?  You might then be able to just draw some geometry in 
the scene to represent the photons?

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scott nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2007/10/16 04:55:
>> Thanks for your responses. On the one hand, I'm glad I didn't miss 
>> anything.
>> On the other hand, I'd really like to be able to "see" photons and more
>> about how they are stored in POV. Perhaps this is something I will look
>> into further.
> 
> Maybe you could look at the source code and see what the format is for 
> the saved photons file?  You might then be able to just draw some 
> geometry in the scene to represent the photons?
> 
> 
I think that it's some king of "sparse" array. Only the elements that are 
actualy used exist at all. In this case, the array's elements would be the 
photons and ther locations.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
You know you've been raytracing too long when you can recite your high school 
Trig book from memory.

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