NAME¶
sunflow - rendering system for photo-realistic image synthesis
SYNOPSIS¶
sunflow [option(s)] file(s)
DESCRIPTION¶
sunflow is an open source rendering system for photo-realistic image
synthesis. It is written in Java and built around a flexible ray tracing core
and an extensible object-oriented design. It was created as a framework for
experimenting with global illumination algorithms and new surface shading
models.
GENERAL OPTIONS¶
A summary of the options can be obtained by using one of the following options:
- -h, -help
- Display the list of available commands
Sunflow will run considerably faster with the so called server VM (Virtual
Machine). This server VM is part of Java, but it's not included in the
standard (JRE) installation of Java. The server VM starts up more slowly and
uses more memory than the standard VM, but it runs a lot faster in many cases.
Sunflow's built-in realtime raytracing benchmark (
-rtbench) for example
runs more than twice as fast with the server VM (exact speedup depends on your
hardware).
The easiest way to get the server VM is by installing the Java Development Kit
(JDK).
On Debian, it is possible to install different JVM at the same time, amongst
which:
gij-4.2 (main),
openjdk-6-jre (main),
sun-java5-jre (non-free),
sun-java6-jre (non-free). To change
the
java link from one to another, use (with root privileges):
"update-alternatives --config java"
A pretty good choice should be
openjdk-6-jre.
See also the "CONFIGURATION FILES" section.
SUGGESTED OPTIONS¶
As explained above, the following options can be used to obtain a performance
gain, but depend on JVM used:
- -server
- Use the server virtual machine. The JDK matching the
selected JVM has to be installed for this option to actually work, e.g.
sun-java5-jdk (non-free). A warning will be displayed otherwise,
and this option ignored.
- -XmxMEM
- Use a memory upper limit of MEM instead of the
default (probably 64M). Example of valid values: 512M, 1G.
Those options are best set through the
SUNFLOW_JAVA_OPTIONS environment
variable, or stored in the configuration files.
CONFIGURATION FILES¶
To allow flexible configuration, the
sunflow wrapper sources two
configuration files:
/etc/sunflowrc and
~/.sunflowrc, in this
order.
The syntax is simple "export KEY=VALUE". Lines beginning with a sharp
sign are ignored.
The following options are supported:
- SUNFLOW_JAVA
- The java virtual machine to use. It's then possible to have
e.g. a system-wide java alternative pointing to
/usr/bin/gij-4.2, while sunflow uses a different JVM, e.g.
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.12/bin/java.
If not set (the default), java will be called, meaning the
system-wide alternative will be used.
- SUNFLOW_JAVA_OPTIONS
- Those are the options to be passed to the java interpreter,
see above for examples.
- SUNFLOW_OPTIONS
- The list of options to pass to sunflow automatically to
avoid repeating them on each invokation of sunflow. Quotation marks
are needed if more than one option is specified.
If not set (the default), no option is passed to sunflow.
SEE ALSO¶
/usr/share/doc/sunflow/README.Debian
AUTHOR¶
Sunflow was written by Christopher Kulla <ckulla@gmail.com>.
This manual page was written by Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org>, for the
Debian project (and may be used by others). It is licensed under the same
terms as the package itself.