Hi Schorsch, Yes, "MLIB" was probably not the best choice of environment variable, and there are more standardized vector graphics formats around these days. The reason behind these choices is mostly historical. When I developed this format circa 1984, there wasn't much else around other than the plot package, which wasn't very capable and wasn't portable across architectures. At the time, I was relying on CP/M as well as Unix, and dot matrix printers for most of my output, so I rolled my own solution.
If you have a good, cross-platform alternative that wouldn't require much work or additional dependencies, we could certainly look into replacing this, but I've found it difficult to come up with something easier than just maintaining what we have. Cheers, -Greg > From: Georg Mischler <[email protected]> > Subject: [Radiance-dev] Meta files and library > Date: May 10, 2016 1:02:07 AM PDT > > Hi, > > our volunteer Sarith Subramaniam is currently working on objline.py. > When trying to test it, he noticed that the NREL releases do not include > the supporting meta files in lib/meta. Since they do include the > executables that require those files, that seems slightly suboptimal... > But it shouldn't be hard to fix. Just copy over "ray/lib/meta/*.mta". > > I've found a previous mention of the topic here: > http://radiance-online.org/pipermail/radiance-general/2015-October/011273.html > > > Some unsorted thoughts on the topic of meta files in general, given that > due to the availability of objline.csh/py, and some newer tutorials, they > will inevitably get more attention in times to come: > > A few messages down the above thread, Greg mentions the undocumented(!) > envvar "MLIB". The first thing running through my mind seeing this was: > "This must be the worst possible name for an environment variable, ever" > (way to generic). > > I also never quite understood the point of inventing yet another > proprietary vector format just for Radiance. Or are such meta files used > anywhere else that I'm not aware of? > They do not seem to be the same as the ISO standardized "Computer Graphics > Meta Files" (http://www.fileformat.info/format/cgm/egff.htm), which would > be a possible candidate for something like that. > Another possible approach would be SVG (or a suitable subset thereof), > which has excellent support libaries available nowadays. > > Of course, I haven't looked into how much work it would be to use either > of those (or yet something else), so this basically just amounts to me > ranting at the moment without any real purpose. But I'm still just curious > what the motivation behind this format was (or which format it actually > is), and what other people are thinking about possible alternatives. > > Cheers > -schorsch > > -- > Georg Mischler -- simulations developer -- schorsch at schorsch com > +schorsch.com+ -- lighting design tools -- http://www.schorsch.com/ > _______________________________________________ Radiance-dev mailing list [email protected] http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-dev
