NAME

       mgf2rad - convert Materials and Geometry Format file to RADIANCE description

SYNOPSIS

       mgf2rad [ -m matfile ][ -e mult ][ -g dist ] [ input ..  ]

DESCRIPTION

       Mgf2rad converts one or more Materials and Geometry Format (MGF) files to a RADIANCE scene
       description.  By definition, all output dimensions are in meters.  The material names  and
       properties  for  the surfaces will be those assigned in MGF.  Any materials not defined in
       MGF will result in an error during translation.  Light sources are described inline as IES
       luminaire files, and mgf2rad calls the program ies2rad(1) to translate these files.  If an
       IES file in turn contains an MGF description of  the  local  fixture  geometry,  this  may
       result  in  a  recursive  call to mgf2rad, which is normal and should be transparent.  The
       only side-effect of this additional translation is the appearance of other RADIANCE  scene
       and data files produced automatically by ies2rad.

       The  -m  option  may  be used to put all the translated materials into a separate RADIANCE
       file.  This is not always advisable, as any given material name may be reused at different
       points  in  the  MGF description, and writing them to a separate file loses the contextual
       association between materials and surfaces.  As long as unique  material  names  are  used
       throughout the MGF description and material properties are not redefined, there will be no
       problem.  Note that this is the only way to get all the translated materials into a single
       file,  since  no  output is produced for unreferenced materials; i.e. translating just the
       MGF materials does not work.

       The -e option may be used to multiply all the emission values by the  given  mult  factor.
       The  -g  option  may  be  used  to  establish a glow distance (in meters) for all emitting
       surfaces.  These two options are employed principally by ies2rad, and  are  not  generally
       useful to most users.

EXAMPLE

       To translate two MGF files into one RADIANCE materials file and one geometry file:

         mgf2rad -m materials.rad building1.mgf building2.mgf > building1+2.rad

       To create an octree directly from two MGF files and one RADIANCE file:

         oconv '\!mgf2rad materials.mgf scene.mgf' source.rad > scene.oct

FILES

       tmesh.cal Used to smooth polygonal geometry
       *.rad          RADIANCE source descriptions created by ies2rad
       *.dat          RADIANCE source data created by ies2rad
       source.cal     Used for IES source coordinates

AUTHOR

       Greg Ward

SEE ALSO

       ies2rad(1), mgf2meta(1), obj2rad(1), oconv(1), rad2mgf(1), xform(1)

       MGF web site "http://radsite.lbl.gov/mgf/HOME.html"