RadDisplay

Radiance image viewer and analysis for architectural light study

RadDisplay has been developed by De Luminæ Lab to answer two basic needs:

Image viewing:
Radiance simulation tool allows users to produce highly realistic images which contain a lot of information concerning light. However, the image format is specific and information about lighting within the image cannot be easily studied without the use of Radiance. In that respect, we could only provide our clients images in "more classical" format and a textual analysis of them. 

In order to give clients the freedom to further investigate themselves the images resulting from image simulations, we developed a Radiance image viewer that does not require Radiance knowledge.
As Radiance is Unix based whereas most of our clients are using Windows, RadDisplay has been developed on these 2 platforms.

Image investigation and false colors: False coloring is in our view a very powerful tool to investigate images. It is also a fantastic communication tool for technical images such as Radiance images.
We think we developed within RadDisplay an easy and nice interface for false colors. You can set number of colors, precise limits between colors, etc.
We hope you'll like it. At least, we use it a lot!

In order to give back a little to the Radiance community which has been of invaluable help over the years of our Radiance use, we decided to release RadDisplay under GPL license so that anyone can freely use, distribute, and modify it.
So feel free to use, correct and improve it !

New in version 1.1

• Trace pixel values on all images - pixels with the same position are traced on all opened images.
• Filter all images - filter all opened images with the same exposure value.
• Compare images - perform various operations on two opened images - add, subtract, etc. This feature uses Radiance pcomb program.
• Create false color images - for listed Radiance images create false color images with the same palette
• Area calculation - select image area below threshold luminance value and calculate luminance distribution for selected area.
• Draw lines on the image - Draw straight lines with specified radiance value on current Radiance image.
• Save image in Radiance format - save current image in Radiance format. If image exposure is changed or some lines added they will be saved too.
• Open/Save images in High Dynamic Range (HDR) format - in consistence with new Radiance recommendations for image extension.

Requirements and installation

RadDisplay program can be installed in Unix/Linux based operating systems and in Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP.

Below are given requirements and installation information for both versions of program.

Installation from binaries (Windows only)
To install RadDisplay program follow next procedure:

1. Double-click on RadDisplay-1.1.1-Setup.exe file to start RadDisplay installation program.
2. Follow all steps in installation program. Default installation path depends of type of user whoe is installing the program: administrator, limited user or guest user. If you install RadDisplay as Administrator, the program will be available for all users. If you install as normal user, RadDisplay will only be available for this user. As Guest the program can not be installed.
3. Program icon will be added to Desktop and Start Menu. Program can be started with double-click on the icon.
4. Configuration files are put in user's Application Data directory, eg. C:\Documents and Settings\Marija\Application Data\RadDisplay.
5. To uninstall program use Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs utility or uninstall program from Start menu, RadDisplay submenu.

When program is installed no other programs or libraries are needed to run the program.

Radiance binaries for Windows operating system.

RadDisplay uses few Radiance programs during the execution: ra_bmp, ra_rgbe, pextrem, pcomb and pfilt. These executables are included in RadDisplay setup file and are automatically installed in 'RadDisplay/Radiance' subdirectory.

Files included in RadDisplay setup are part of MinGW Radiance 3R9 installation for Windows by Francesco Anselmo. Pcomb.exe executable is part of Desktop Radiance distribution.
Note: During the installation of RadDisplay, path to Radiance programs is appended to environment variable PATH.

MSVCP71.dll or other MSVC***.dll

These dll files are often are already included in MS Windows OS, but sometimes they aren't :)
Since licensing for distribution of these dll files is not quite clear on Internet, and they can be freely downloaded, we haven't included them in our program distribution.

Installation from sources (Linux and Windows)
RadDisplay source code distribution can be installed on both Linux and Windows platforms. To install it follow the procedure below:

Before you can install RadDisplay, the complementary packages listed below (see requirements) need to be installed.

Linux OS

1. Open archive raddisplay-1.1.1.tar.gz
   tar xvzf raddisplay-1.1.1.tar.gz.
2. In directory raddisplay-1.1.1, log as a root user and execute command
   python setup.py install
3. Program will be installed in site-packages subdirectory in Python directory and it is available to all users with commandraddisplay.
4. Configuration files are put in users home directory in subdirectory raddisplay-conf.
5. To uninstall the program you can use script uninstall.csh as root user. This will remove all RadDisplay files, and your config files won't be deleted.

Windows OS

1. Open archive raddisplay-1.1.1zip with some of standard Window archive programs.
2. Open Command Prompt window (Start menu->Run, type cmd and press "OK"), position yourself in raddisplay-1.1.1 directory and run the command
   python setup.py install
3. Program will be installed in Lib/site-packages subdirectory in Python directory, and raddisplay script will be in Scripts subdirectory in Python directory.
   Create shortcut to raddisplay script, and use it to open the program (with python).
4. Configuration files are put in user's Application Data directory, eg. C:\Documents and Settings\Marija\Application Data\RadDisplay.

Requirements

To run RadDisplay installed from source code distribution next programs/libraries are required:

1. Python, version 2.4 or above;
2. wxPython, version 2.6.x or above;
3. Pyhon Imaging Library (PIL) version 1.1.6 or above;
4. NumPy Python module;
5. Python for Windows extensions on Windows;
6. Radiance version 3.7.x or above for Linux version. On Windows few programs from MINGW Radiance distribution are installed with program.

Optional packages (Windows and Linux)

1. weave or scipy.weave - for C extensions compilation. Program distribution already contains compiled extensions for Windows and Linux OS
2. psutil - for memory usage reports