Hi,

  I have 20500 frames written from a molecular dynamics simulation. Is there
anyway to easily render these is batch (I believe the queue will only allow 512
files at the moment). Other than staying up all night and re-filling the queue
when it empties, the only way I can think to do this currently would be to load
up
40 instances of POV ray... each with a full queue and start them
simultaneously!... guessing that's not the best option!

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Peter

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"Peter" <mur### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Peter

 Write a bat file that you can run from cmd.exe

Use an external text editor or write a macro in povray to generate it as a ascii
text file

B.Gimeno

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"B. Gimeno" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
>  Write a bat file that you can run from cmd.exe

Been a while since I've had to use them... didn't even think of using that..
I'll give that a try!

Thanks.

peter

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> Hi,
>
>    I have 20500 frames written from a molecular dynamics simulation. Is there
> anyway to easily render these is batch (I believe the queue will only allow 512
> files at the moment). Other than staying up all night and re-filling the queue
> when it empties, the only way I can think to do this currently would be to load
> up
> 40 instances of POV ray... each with a full queue and start them
> simultaneously!... guessing that's not the best option!
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Peter
>
>
>

Are your source files ending in sequential numbers?

If so, you can use the internal animation feature to render all your 
frames within a single sequence.

You can have a main .POV file that will #include the relevent data 
according to the frame_number value using some string manipulations. The 
concat(...) and str(...) string functions will greatly help construct 
the needed files names.

#declare IN_File = concat("Mole",str(frame_number, -5, 0), ".inc")
#include IN_File

The "-5" in str mean zero-pading of the value to 5 digits.
The "0" means zero decimal places.

And start the render with +kff 20500 on the command line.

This assume that your molecule are described in files names "Molexxxxx.inx".
Change the name as needed.

You can include files with any extention as long as they are writen 
using the correct POV syntaxe.




Alain

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Alain <kua### [at] videotronca> wrote:

> Are your source files ending in sequential numbers?

Yes... they are animate00000.pov - animate20500.pov

> If so, you can use the internal animation feature to render all your
> frames within a single sequence.
>
> You can have a main .POV file that will #include the relevent data
> according to the frame_number value using some string manipulations. The
> concat(...) and str(...) string functions will greatly help construct
> the needed files names.
>
> #declare IN_File = concat("Mole",str(frame_number, -5, 0), ".inc")
> #include IN_File
>
> The "-5" in str mean zero-pading of the value to 5 digits.
> The "0" means zero decimal places.
>
> And start the render with +kff 20500 on the command line.
>
> This assume that your molecule are described in files names "Molexxxxx.inx".
> Change the name as needed.
>
> You can include files with any extention as long as they are writen
> using the correct POV syntaxe.

I have created a POV file with this as its contents (based on your suggestions
above):
#declare IN_File = concat("animate",str(frame_number, -5, 0), ".pov")
#include IN_File

However, when I run from the command line, nothing happens. When I run it using
the GUI I get an error "Parse Error: Cannot open animate00000.pov" .

This would suggest (to me at least) that the animate00000.pov is not readable,
however, I know this isn't the case since I have rendered many of the files
individually and using the queue (and a batch file) and they are fine.

Am i missing something?

Peter

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On 26/07/2013 7:25 PM, Peter wrote:
> However, when I run from the command line, nothing happens. When I run it using
> the GUI I get an error "Parse Error: Cannot open animate00000.pov" .

A silly question but are your files in the same directory as the master 
file?

This is an example that works for me.

#include concat("f:\\Graphics\\B3D 
Data\\Scenes\\Earth_Inside\\Chain02G1\\Chain02G2Y_",str(mod(frame_number,89),-4,0),".pov")


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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Stephen <mca### [at] aolcom> wrote:
> On 26/07/2013 7:25 PM, Peter wrote:
> > However, when I run from the command line, nothing happens. When I run it using
> > the GUI I get an error "Parse Error: Cannot open animate00000.pov" .
>
> A silly question but are your files in the same directory as the master
> file?

Yes.. they are in the same directory... but I suppose you had to ask that!! :P

> This is an example that works for me.
>
> #include concat("f:\\Graphics\\B3D
>
Data\\Scenes\\Earth_Inside\\Chain02G1\\Chain02G2Y_",str(mod(frame_number,89),-4,0),".pov")
>
>
> --
> Regards
>      Stephen


I'll update my file and give it a try. I have gotten a batch file working, but
the way its set up right now I have POV ray opening, rendering a scene (~1.7
seconds) and closing... then repeating over and over and over again.... besides
the risk of epileptic seizure, it would obviously be faster to either keep one
POV ray open and one after another pass the 20501 files through to be rendered
or to have pov-ray start minimized... at least that way the render time would be
decreased and I wouldn't have windows flashing every 1-2 seconds!

Post a reply to this message

Stephen <mca### [at] aolcom> wrote:
> On 26/07/2013 7:25 PM, Peter wrote:
> > However, when I run from the command line, nothing happens. When I run it using
> > the GUI I get an error "Parse Error: Cannot open animate00000.pov" .
>
> A silly question but are your files in the same directory as the master
> file?
>
> This is an example that works for me.
>
> #include concat("f:\\Graphics\\B3D
>
Data\\Scenes\\Earth_Inside\\Chain02G1\\Chain02G2Y_",str(mod(frame_number,89),-4,0),".pov")
>
>
> --
> Regards
>      Stephen

So... you were right to ask about the files being int he same directory... I
didn't make that stupid mistake, but I realized once I saw your code Chain02G2Y_
(with the _ that my filenames are actually animate.XXXXX.pov not
animateXXXXX.pov!! seems to work now!!

Thanks for all of your help everyone!!

Post a reply to this message

On 26/07/2013 8:57 PM, Peter wrote:
> I
> didn't make that stupid mistake, but I realized once I saw your code Chain02G2Y_
> (with the _ that my filenames are actually animate.XXXXX.pov not
> animateXXXXX.pov!! seems to work now!!

Don't ask me how many times I've made that mistake. :-)

I generally use a #debug to print to screen what the code is writing. 
Good for catching spaces as well.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 26/07/2013 8:51 PM, Peter wrote:
> I'll update my file and give it a try. I have gotten a batch file working, but
> the way its set up right now I have POV ray opening, rendering a scene (~1.7
> seconds) and closing... then repeating over and over and over again.... besides
> the risk of epileptic seizure, it would obviously be faster to either keep one
> POV ray open and one after another pass the 20501 files through to be rendered
> or to have pov-ray start minimized... at least that way the render time would be
> decreased and I wouldn't have windows flashing every 1-2 seconds!


There is a better way than running the files sequentially. You can use 
the animation feature. Here is a snipit of code from an ini file.

Input_File_Name = animate_.pov
Output_File_Name = animate_
Initial_Frame = 0
Final_Frame = 999999
Subset_Start_Frame = 0
Subset_End_Frame = 20501

  /* I like to use an underscore between the name and the numbers for 
readability. */


"Input_File_Name" calls your PovRay master file (which #includes your 
series of pov files"

"Output_File_Name" is the base name of the rendered files.

"Initial_Frame": Your start frame number. (Keep it 0)

"Final_Frame" : Any number bigger than your largest frame number.

"Subset_Start_Frame": Where you want to start rendering from.

"Subset_End_Frame": Where you want to stop rendering.

You don't need to use an ini file. You can use command line options.

This method works for me.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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