multiple processors

Hi all,

Can Radiance be run on computers with multiple processors? Similarly,
can it be run across multiple machines? And if so, does one need to do
anything special to make it run?

Cheers

Nick L

Nicholas Lander

Associate

mob: 0438 247 472

CUNDALL

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300 Queen Street

Brisbane QLD 4000

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Hi Nicholas,

There are many ways to run Radiance with multiple processors
and multiple machines. Some programs like rad and rholo have
support for multiple processors (-N option), rpiece can be used
to split a picture into tiles and have them rendered by different
processors or computers over a network (for instance sharing
the scene files with nfs).

Personally, I like to use openmosix with Radiance, and you can
read about my experience in a previous message to this mailing list:

http://www.radiance-online.org/pipermail/radiance-general/2004-August/001992.html

···

__
Francesco
[email protected]

Thanks Francesco.

···

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Francesco Anselmo
Sent: 22 November 2005 18:55
To: Radiance general discussion
Subject: Re: [Radiance-general] multiple processors

Hi Nicholas,

There are many ways to run Radiance with multiple processors
and multiple machines. Some programs like rad and rholo have
support for multiple processors (-N option), rpiece can be used
to split a picture into tiles and have them rendered by different
processors or computers over a network (for instance sharing
the scene files with nfs).

Personally, I like to use openmosix with Radiance, and you can
read about my experience in a previous message to this mailing list:

http://www.radiance-online.org/pipermail/radiance-general/2004-August/00
1992.html

__
Francesco
[email protected]

_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general

Hi Francesco and all,

I've read through the mailing list archives and experimented with "rad
-N" and rpiece. I'm using multiple CPUs and multiple machines on
'standard' linux distros - cannot use openmosix.

Two questions:

1.
If I do this:

rad -v single_view -N 5 myscene.rif

Rad will *not* split up my scene for me (using rpiece). However, if I
specify multiple views, rad *will* run rpict multiple times
simultaneously (ie. as forked/backgrounded processes).
Is this expected behaviour? I was hoping it would split my scene!

2.
Usually I use RIF files to store my "scene=", "illum=", "zone="
variables, and to let rad handle calling oconv/rpict/pfilt/etc correctly
with appropriate settings.

To divide up a scene, it seems I must use rpiece which calls rpict.
(Let's *assume* my NFS lockd is working okay). Therefore I cannot use
rad and my rif files? So I have to do what rad does *manually* and
incorporate rpiece into this process?

Many thanks,

Brett Beeson

CUNDALL
HSBC Building Level 20
300 Queen Street
Brisbane QLD 4000
tel: +61 (0)7 3023 5048
fax: +61 (0)7 3023 4000
www.cundall.com.au

···

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Francesco Anselmo
Sent: 22 November 2005 18:55
To: Radiance general discussion
Subject: Re: [Radiance-general] multiple processors

Hi Nicholas,

There are many ways to run Radiance with multiple processors
and multiple machines. Some programs like rad and rholo have
support for multiple processors (-N option), rpiece can be used
to split a picture into tiles and have them rendered by different
processors or computers over a network (for instance sharing
the scene files with nfs).

Personally, I like to use openmosix with Radiance, and you can
read about my experience in a previous message to this mailing list:

http://www.radiance-online.org/pipermail/radiance-general/2004-August/00
1992.html

__
Francesco
[email protected]

_______________________________________________
Radiance-general mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general

Brett Beeson
Sustainable Designer

Important Notice. Use of this email and any attachments is subject to
the terms on www.cundall.com.au.
Please read that notice before proceeding.
If you cannot access these terms please telephone (02) 8424 7000 or
reply to this email and we will send you a copy.

Hi Brett,

Two questions:

1.
If I do this:

rad -v single_view -N 5 myscene.rif

Rad will *not* split up my scene for me (using rpiece). However, if I
specify multiple views, rad *will* run rpict multiple times
simultaneously (ie. as forked/backgrounded processes).
Is this expected behaviour? I was hoping it would split my scene!

This is the current behavior of rad. I did not implement calls to rpiece with the -N option, only parallel rendering of multiple views. Running rpiece properly and handling all the border cases, recovery, etc., is a bit complicated. It would be nice to do in rad, but I haven't put it in there, yet. Maybe when I have a 4-processor machine, it will seem worth my while.

2.
Usually I use RIF files to store my "scene=", "illum=", "zone="
variables, and to let rad handle calling oconv/rpict/pfilt/etc correctly
with appropriate settings.

To divide up a scene, it seems I must use rpiece which calls rpict.
(Let's *assume* my NFS lockd is working okay). Therefore I cannot use
rad and my rif files? So I have to do what rad does *manually* and
incorporate rpiece into this process?

If you run "rad -v 0 input.rif", it will call oconv and mkillum to generate the octree, without doing any renderings. You can then pick up the job with rpiece at that point.

-Greg

Hi Brett,

1.
If I do this:

rad -v single_view -N 5 myscene.rif

Rad will *not* split up my scene for me (using rpiece). However, if I

specify multiple views, rad >*will* run rpict multiple times
simultaneously (ie. as forked/backgrounded processes).

Is this expected behaviour? I was hoping it would split my scene!

As Greg already explained, this is the expected behaviour, but if you
need to render
more than 1 view you can always share the ambient cache and save some
time.

(Let's *assume* my NFS lockd is working okay).

There shouldn't be any problem with NFS lockd if you're using a recent
linux distro.
Of course you will need to login to each machine or use some kind of
remote login
to launch your rpiece processes.

Francesco

···

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To get the rpict parameters rad would produce use the options "-n -e" of rad
to have all the rendering steps printed to stdout. You can copy the necessary
rpict options to a file (ie. "rpict.opts") and include them in the rpiece
command line with "rpice ... @rpict.opts" (see the man page of rpiece for
details).

Thomas

···

On 01.12.2005, at 07:30, Gregory J. Ward wrote:

2.
Usually I use RIF files to store my "scene=", "illum=", "zone="
variables, and to let rad handle calling oconv/rpict/pfilt/etc correctly
with appropriate settings.

To divide up a scene, it seems I must use rpiece which calls rpict.
(Let's *assume* my NFS lockd is working okay). Therefore I cannot use
rad and my rif files? So I have to do what rad does *manually* and
incorporate rpiece into this process?

If you run "rad -v 0 input.rif", it will call oconv and mkillum to generate the octree, without doing any renderings. You can then pick up the job with rpiece at that point.

-Greg

That's a good suggestion. An easier method without the cut-and-paste is:

rad -v 0 input.rif OPT=render.opt
rpict @render.opt -vf view.vf [res] octree > output.pic

This also builds the octree. Rpict can of course be replaced by rvu or rpiece or whatever.

-Greg

···

From: Thomas Bleicher <[email protected]>
Date: December 2, 2005 2:44:05 AM PST

On 01.12.2005, at 07:30, Gregory J. Ward wrote:

2.
Usually I use RIF files to store my "scene=", "illum=", "zone="
variables, and to let rad handle calling oconv/rpict/pfilt/etc correctly
with appropriate settings.

To divide up a scene, it seems I must use rpiece which calls rpict.
(Let's *assume* my NFS lockd is working okay). Therefore I cannot use
rad and my rif files? So I have to do what rad does *manually* and
incorporate rpiece into this process?

If you run "rad -v 0 input.rif", it will call oconv and mkillum to generate the octree, without doing any renderings. You can then pick up the job with rpiece at that point.

-Greg

To get the rpict parameters rad would produce use the options "-n -e" of rad
to have all the rendering steps printed to stdout. You can copy the necessary
rpict options to a file (ie. "rpict.opts") and include them in the rpiece
command line with "rpice ... @rpict.opts" (see the man page of rpiece for
details).

Thomas