Maximum 3D 3/m3d-p3.iso/PROGRAM/LIGHTSCP.311/LS311.R19/DONOTREADME.TXT

Text File | 1997-09-16 | 42KB | 908 lines

=================================================================
Lightscape for Windows NT and Windows 95
=================================================================
Part #: 0-01-030-01-12127
Lightscape version:    3.1.1
This file last updated:    9/16/97

Welcome to Version 3.1.1 of Lightscape for Windows NT and
Windows 95.

This README is divided into the following sections:

    Installation
    New Features and Improvements
    Hints and Tips for Using Lightscape
    Existing Problems and Workarounds


Lightscape Technologies, Inc.
1054 South DeAnza Boulevard
San Jose, CA 95129-3553 USA

Phone:        [phone]
Fax:        [phone]
Sales email:    [e-mail]
www        http://www.lightscape.com
Support:    [e-mail] and
               http://www.lightscape.com/Support

Important note for Lightscape 3.1:
If you place dialog boxes or other windows over the main Lightscape
window and later move them, portions of the Lightscape window may not
be immediately redrawn. This is not a problem with the software. It is
due to a software enhancement designed to reduce the amount of screen
redraws. Pressing the F5 key will immediately refresh the Lightscape
window. (Make sure the window is active first.) You can control this
feature with the Display>Highest Quality Backing Store function. For
more information, please refer to Improving Display Speed section below.


----------------- Installation ----------------------------

This version of Lightscape has been tested with and is designed to work
with Windows NT 4.0 (with Service Pack 3), Windows 95 (with Service Pack
1), and Windows NT 3.51 (with Service Pack 5). It has been tested with
Windows 98 Beta 1 but at this time Windows 98 is not supported since
Microsoft has not released the final version of Windows 98 at the time
of Lightscape 3.1.1 shipping.

In addition, several users of Internet Explorer 4.0 beta on Windows 95
have experienced problems running Lightscape on the same system. We
suggest that you remove Internet Explorer 4.0 beta before running
Lightscape.

Note:  If you have not upgraded your version of Windows NT 3.51 or
Windows 95 with the required service pack, you can get a copy by
contacting Microsoft or by downloading a copy from the Microsoft Web site:

Windows 95:        http://www.microsoft.com/windows95
Windows NT Workstation:    http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation
Windows NT Server:    http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver

To install Lightscape:

1.    Place the Lightscape CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive.
2.    Click the Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 Start button and
    choose Run OR choose File>Run in the Windows NT 3.51
    Program Manager.
3.    Type the following:
    d:\setup and press Enter.
    (If necessary, replace d: with the letter that
    represents your CD-ROM drive.)
4.    Install Lightscape locally from the CD-ROM or copy the
    Lightscape networked disk images to the local hard disk and
    install from there.

The Lightscape installer wizard guides you through the installation
process. Lightscape Setup now allows the Adobe(r) Acrobat(r) Reader to be
installed so that you can view the Lightscape on-line manuals included
in Acrobat(r) format. The Acrobat(r) Reader requires approximately 11 MB of
disk space for installation. The Typical and Custom installation includes
installation of the Acrobat(r) Reader by default.  If an Acrobat(r) Reader
is already installed on your machine, you may deselect installation of
the Acrobat(r) Reader by using the "Custom Installation" option.

For more detailed installation instructions, refer to the Installation
and Authorization Guide.

-------- New Features and Improvements --------

Usability
---------
Drag and Drop support for materials, textures, and IES files.
    Materials can be dragged from the Materials Table and dropped
      on a surface in the Graphic Window in order to assign the
      material to that surface. If you want to assign the material
      to several surfaces at once, then you must still select the
      surfaces and use the Surface Context menu to assign the material.
    Textures (image files) can be dragged from LVu, the Windows
      Explorer (Windows 95 and NT 4.0 only), and the File Manager
      (Windows NT 3.51 only). The textures can be dropped on a
      surface in the Graphic Window to assign the texture to the
      surface's material (Windows 95 and NT 4.0 only). The textures
      can also be dropped to the name field or thumbnail image on
      the Texture page of the Material Properties dialog to assign
      the texture to the material (all Windows versions).
    IES files can be dragged from Windows Explorer (Windows 95 and NT
      4.0 only) or the File Manager (NT 3.51 only) and dropped into
      the name field of the Luminaire Properties dialog (when the
      distribution type is set to Photometric Web).

Increased control over redraws:
    The new Display>Highest Quality Backing store option is off by
      default. When off, the software does not spend time redrawing when
      windows and dialogs overlap the Graphic Window. This can greatly
      improve the performance of picking operations. If dialogs and
      windows that overlap the Graphic Window are moved, holes may appear
      in the Graphic Window's display. To redraw these areas, just use
      the new Display>Refresh function or press the F5 key.
    Turning off Display>Auto Redraw affects more functions than in
      Lightscape 3.0. Turning this off allows you to stop automatic redraws
      after loading Layer tables, toggling layer states, reassigning
      materials on surfaces, loading material libraries, changing material
      properties, changing document properties, and loading block and
      luminaire libraries. When you are ready to update the display use the
      Display>Refresh (F5) function.

Cross Hairs are now used to identify selected points in the Surface Create,
    Surface Orientation, Transformation Orientation, Measure Distance,
    and Lighting Analysis Statistics dialogs. The size of the cross hairs
    can be set on the new Edit>Preferences dialog.

Busy Cursors are now shown during all file open, save, and export operations.

Errors when opening Preparation files, Block libraries, Luminaire libraries,
    Material libraries, and Layer State files are now reported clearly. In
    most cases, if there is an error while reading a file, you can choose
    to ignore the error and continue reading. In this case, the behavior
    is similar to Lightscape 3.0.

You can now find out if a surface is double-side, single-sided, smooth, or flat
    by selecting one or more surfaces and then activating the Surface
    Processing dialog using the Surface Context menu.

The Mesh to Texture tool now has browse buttons for more easily choosing output
    file names and locations, snap to nearest vertex is on by default, a
    progress bar is shown while generating textures, and the user can
    select the color to use for pixels that are beyond the converted
    geometry.

The Help menu provides links to our web site making it easy to access
    up-to-date information about the Lightscape software and support
    facilities. There are also links to the Lightscape Libraries Help files
    (if you purchase and install them on your system).

LVu can load select images in a directory, show images tiled, and supports
    dragging to the lscape application.

Lsrender allows you to optionally render off-screen, removing the constraint
    that it's window not be covered during rendering. Note: in this new
    mode (no -w on the command line) the software OpenGL libraries will
    be used and hardware OpenGL accelerators will not be used. See the
    section at the end of this README on Command Line Utilities for more
    information.

The software supports an optional hardware lock. This will make it easier to
    run Lightscape on more than one computer, more than one operating
    system on the same computer, and allows you to keep your authorization
    when reinstalling Windows. The hardware key can be ordered separately
    from Lightscape Technologies.

The on-line help system has been updated to describe the new features.

The software has been internationalized to make it easier to create versions
    in languages other than English.

Performance
-----------
Improvements of 5% to 10% in ray tracing and radiosity calculation speed have
    been added.

Improvements have been made to reduce the amount of texture memory required
    when alpha channels are not in the textures.

The speed of the Transformation Rotate operation has been increased.

Integration
-----------
Improvements have been made to the 3DS/R4 importer.

Plug-ins for 3D Studio MAX that export preparation (LP) and import
    solution (LS) files are included.

Exporters for Panoramic images are included.

The lscape application can now export VRML files directly (not just
    from the ls2vrml utility).


-------- Hints and Tips for Using Lightscape --------

Access the Lightscape web site (www.lightscape.com) to get the
    latest hints and tips for using Lightscape to its fullest.

Improving Performance for:
    Display Interactivity - See the notes below and Refer to
      Chapter 4 in the Lightscape Getting Started manual or the
      Document Properties topic in the Reference section of the
      on-line help.
    Ray Tracing - Refer to Chapter 12 in the
      Lightscape User's Guide or the Rendering topic in the
      Concepts section of the on-line help.
    Radiosity Processing - Refer to Chapter 8 in the
      Lightscape User's Guide or the Solution Stage topic
      in the Concepts section of the on-line help.

Improving Display Speed
-----------------------
By setting up your system correctly, observing a few rules of
thumb, and efficiently using the tools offered in Lightscape,
you can increase the display performance of the system.

  1. Using Lightscape Tools to Increase Model Interactions:
     Lightscape has five tools which let you increase
     the general display performance.

      A. Turn off Highest Quality Backing Store: Turning off
     Highest Quality Backing Store can greatly improve the
     performance of picking operations when windows and dialogs
     overlap the Graphic Window. If dialogs and windows that
     overlap the Graphic Window are moved, holes may appear in the
     Graphic Window's display. To redraw these areas, just use the
     new Display>Refresh function or press the F5 key. Note: The
     Highest Quality Backing Store setting is ignored when in the
     Animation>Edit mode.

      B. Turn off Auto-Redraw: Turning off Auto-Redraw will
     suppress redraws for certain operations. For example, when
     you want to change many materials, it is useful not to
     redraw after applying each change. To redraw the display,
     just use the new Display>Refresh function or press the
     F5 key.

      C. Display Interactivity Page: In the Edit->Document
     Properties dialog, there is a page for changing the
     quality of the redraws of the model.  Using the
     functionality on this page can greatly increase
     the interaction speeds.

      D. Isolate Views: You can select a set of surfaces you wish
     to operate on and isolate them in the display using the
     Isolate function available from the context menu in the
     Graphic Window.

      E. Interrupt Redraws: You can use the Esc key to interrupt
     a redraw.

  2. 3D Graphics Hardware:  If you have a 3D Graphics board,
    make sure you have installed the latest driver for the
    board.  When an operating system auto-detects most 3D
    boards, it detects the VGA controller on the board and
    only installs that driver.  (Your system administrator
    will know whether he/she installed the driver for your
    card.)  Without the 3D graphics driver installed, the
    system is not using the board's full capabilities.

  3. NT 4.0:  If the driver for the graphics card does
    not support Direct Draw under NT4.0, then NT 4.0 is
    VERY slow when drawing directly to the screen.  This slows
    down single buffer performance and highlighting picked objects.
    If you see an enormous slow down when using single buffer,
    consult your graphics board manufacturer about getting a
    driver that supports Direct Draw.

  4. Window Layout:  When working in Lightscape with the Highest
    Quality Backing Store Option On, you can *significantly*
    increase the performance of interactions if the main
    Graphics Window is *not* obscured by other windows.
    Position dialogs outside of the main window. Do not
    maximize the main window because this forces it
    underneath the various dialogs. Note: Highest Quality
    Backing Store is off by default so the window layout may not
    be an issue for you.

  5. Turn off display of window contents while dragging.
    Windows NT 3.51: Double-click Desktop in the Control Panel.
             Uncheck "Full Drag".
    Windows NT 4.0:  Double-click Display in the Control Panel
             (Start>Settings>Control Panel).  Click the
             Plus! Tab.  Uncheck the "Show window
             contents while dragging."
    Windows 95:     By default, a window's content does not
             display while dragging.

  6. Excessive redraws caused by other applications:
    There seems to be a behavior in Windows NT 3.51
    where the Lightscape window is redrawn more often than
    it should be, if there are other applications whose
    windows are configured to "stay on top".  For example,
    MS Office has an "Always on Top" flag, as does WinHelp
    (Options:Keep Help On Top).  To avoid unnecessary redraws
    while in Lightscape, you should either turn these options off
    or do not run these applications with Lightscape.

    For example, to turn off the "Always on Top" flag in
    MS Office, do the following:
    1. Press the right mouse button over the toolbar and
       select Customize from the context menu.
    2. Select the View tab.
    3. Uncheck the "Always on Top" checkbox
       in the lower right area.

    Please note that this solution does not work for the
    MS Office 95 Shortcut Bar. If you are running the
    MS Office 95 Shortcut Bar, you need to close it in order
    to eliminate the unnecessary redraws.

Display Quality
---------------
Panoramic Image Export:
    When exporting panoramic images, make sure that the view
    location is inside the model. This will prevent any areas
    with the background color from appearing in the image. Also,
    use the Rendering button to make sure that the ray bounces
    are set high enough to penetrate all surfaces that are
    transparent and/or use an alpha channel texture map.

Lighting Analysis Legend:
    The Lighting Analysis legend (multi-shaded bar at the bottom
    of the Graphic Window) may have labels covering and blending
    into each other. The workaround is to make the Graphic Window
    large enough to fit all of the labels.  Make sure to render
    images smaller than the screen size in order to get the legend
    displayed properly.

Wireframe Drawing Leaves White Dots on the Edges of Windows:
    This only happens when Display>Antialiasing is on. It is due
    to a bug in the Microsoft OpenGL implementation. The workaround
    is to turn off antialiasing or use a hardware display driver
    that has antialiasing implemented correctly.

Brightness for Interior and Exterior Solutions:
    Be aware that the brightness slider on the Document Properties
    dialog gives different results for the same brightness depending
    on whether you have Daylight Through Windows and Openings on or
    off (this is set in the Process Parameters dialog).  When
    Daylight Through Windows and Openings is on, the same brightness
    value will give you a darker image.

Some Fog Types don't work:
    Due to a bug in the Microsoft OpenGL driver, Linear and Haze
    fog types may not be displayed correctly.  One workaround is to
    use a hardware display driver that has fog implemented correctly.
    Another workaround is to use the ray tracer to render your images.

When Using Fog, Ray Traced Images Become the Color of the Fog:
    When using the non-GL compatible ray tracer, it is possible to
    have the entire image become the color of the fog. The problem
    is that the fog color (not the fog density) is brighter than the
    brightest color allowed by the brightness and contrast settings.
    The solution is to make the fog color darker (switch to HSV color
    selection and reduce the V level) until this no longer happens.

Ray Tracing Artifacts:
    If the ray tracer produces images with a few pixels that are the
    background color or the    computed image is not perfectly aligned
    with the original camera view, then you should check the clipping
    planes.  The clipping planes should be positioned tightly around
    the scene; when they are not (especially when the near clipping
    plane is very close to the viewer), the renderer can have trouble
    determining depth information, leading to artifacts in the
    resulting images. Also,    make sure that the ray bounces are set
    high enough to penetrate all surfaces that are transparent and/or
    use an alpha channel texture map.

Data Management Tips
--------------------
Setting Proper Units:
    The most common problem for new users is that they do not
    specify the proper units when loading a new file (DXF or
    3D Studio). Although the model may look correct on the screen,
    the scale can often be wrong. For example, if a wall is saved
    in a DXF file in Millimeters but the user specifies Meters when
    loading the DXF file then a wall which in reality is 3 meters high
    will be interpreted as being 3000 meters high.  If this model
    is processed it will quickly run out of memory (and likely hang
    or crash). If you are unsure of the units used in your imported
    file, you should do one of the following tests to make sure the
    units are correct:

    1. After loading the imported file, a message box is displayed
       showing the size of the model. Does it make sense?
       If not, you should see if you can determine by what scale
       factor it is incorrect. That tells you what units you should
       specify when you reload the file. For example, if a 3 meter
       high wall showed 3000 meters, you know that you are off by
       a factor of 1000 and that you should specify millimeters
       instead of meters when reloading the file.

    OR

    1. After loading the imported file, use Tools>Measure Distance
       to activate the Measure Distance dialog.
    2. Pick two points in the Graphic Window between which you
       know (or can approximate) the distance.
    3. Check the units indicated in the status bar and then the
       value displayed in the Distance field. Does it make sense?
       If not, you should see if you can determine by what scale
       factor it is incorrect. That tells you what units you should
       specify when you reload the file. For example, if a 3 meter
       high wall showed 3000 meters, you know that you are off by
       a factor of 1000 and that you should specify millimeters
       instead of meters when reloading the file.

Texture Maps on Blocks:
    Issue: You should align textures on blocks in the Preparation
    stage. Otherwise you will have to do the alignment to every
    instance of the block during the Solution stage.

    Solution: You should align textures on blocks in Isolate mode.
    This way you will get the same relative placement on each instance
    of the block.  Furthermore, the surfaces you select for the
    placement of textures must be immediate children of the isolated
    block and not part of a sub-block. If this does not help you for
    your particular project, then align the texture in Solution mode.

Materials Properties Editing:
    While renaming & editing multiple materials, leave the
    Material Properties dialog on the screen. This saves several
    menu picks when switching from material to material. Don't
    forget to click the APPLY button before switching between
    materials.

Using Transparent Surfaces:
    Issue: When using transparent surfaces, the blending function
    for the display mode can make them invisible.

    Solution: Turn off the blending mode to allow you to see the
    surfaces. The proper degree of transparency will be displayed
    in the model after it is initiated and several radiosity
    iterations are processed.

Length Tolerance:
    Issue 1: The length tolerance control is in the Process
      Parameters dialog. During the Process>Initiate operation
      this feature checks the length of each line segment of
      each polygon against the minimum value specified by
      the tolerance value. If the length of the line segment
      is less than the tolerance value, the line segment will get discarded.
    Solution 1: Decrease this value if you are losing geometry that
      is too small.

    Issue 2: The length tolerance control is also used to control
      which input polygons are joined to form surfaces in Solution mode.
      If the Length tolerance is too small, input polygons that ought
      to be joined might not be.
    Solution 2: Increase this value to force the grouping to occur.
      Grouping of input polygons into larger surfaces is valuable
      because it can improve the quality and speed of the
      radiosity calculations.

    Issue 3: You see artifacts while ray tracing.
    Solution 3: Go back to the corresponding preparation model,
      reduce the length tolerance, re-initiate, and then
      re-process the model.

Initiating Models:
    Issue 1: System runs out of memory while initiating.
    Solution 1: When initiating models that have long, thin polygons,
      you may need to increase the Initialization Minimum Area
      parameter.
    Solution 2: This can happen if you have many polygons on a single
      layer. Create new layers and distribute the polygons between the
      new layers.

    Issue 2: While initiating large models or models with many windows,
      the status bar may show 100% complete even though there is
      additional processing to do.
    Solution 2: Be patient and it will finish processing.

Appending files:
    When appending files, the document properties of the incoming
    file are ignored and those of the file currently in memory are
    kept. However, materials, layers, block, and luminaire
    information will be overwritten by the incoming (appended) file.

Double-sided Surfaces:
    Lightscape allows you to mark surfaces as double-sided.  You should
    rarely use this feature. These surfaces can be seen from both sides
    even when culling is on. Also, these surfaces can receive light on
    both sides during radiosity processing. However, these surfaces cannot
    reflect light back into the environment during simulation. If accurate
    interreflections between surfaces are important for your scene,
    you should not use double-sided surfaces; instead, you should use
    pairs of surfaces with opposite orientations and leave some space
    between them to properly represent the thickness of your object.

Smoothing Calculations:
    Smoothing a set of polygons may still show an occasional sharp edge.
    This problem may happen when a light source shines light at a grazing
    angle towards two adjacent smoothed polygons.  If the source is in
    front of one polygon, but behind the other, it will only contribute
    light to the former and the edge between the two will appear sharp.

Inventor Export:
    Make sure you review the README.txt file in the \Inventor directory
    of the Lightscape CD for instructions on installing and authorizing
    the Inventor run-time libraries.

-------- Existing Problems and Workarounds --------

Problems and Workarounds for User Interface Controls
----------------------------------------------------
Interrupting Radiosity Processing:
    Issue: You can interrupt radiosity processing by pressing
      the Esc key, which is the same as the Process>Stop operation.
      This will stop at the completion of the current iteration.
      For a large model, this may require that you wait a while. This
      may also be an issue when processing solutions with Daylight.
    Solution: If you want to stop immediately, then use Shift-Esc
      to interrupt processing. In both cases, you can continue
      processing by using the Process>Go operation. If you use
      Shift-Esc, and you want to save the file, you should continue
      processing to complete an iteration before saving.

Checkpoints Dialog:
    Issue 1: Using the arrow keys to adjust the Shots Between
      Checkpoints slider will move the value either one unit or
      two units.
    Solution 1: Use the input field to enter the exact value you want.

    Issue 2: If you browse for a file name in the Checkpoints dialog
      after setting the number of iterations, you will need to set
      the number of iterations again.

Radiosity Processing Does Not Proceed while Lightscape is Minimized:
    Issue: If you start the radiosity processing in lscape and then
      minimize (iconify) the application, then processing will pause
      until the application is restored.
    Solution: Instead of minimizing it, make the window small by
      changing it's size or push it to the background.

Animation Dialog:
    Issue 1: Using the Display>Draw operation while in Animation
      Edit can cause display artifacts. In addition, the keyframe
      view may be improperly shown if you add keyframes after a
      Display>Draw operation.
    Solution 1: Avoid using Display>Draw when editing an animation.
      Instead use the Display>Refresh function of press the F5 key.
      Going into View>Setup and canceling will reset the keyframe view
      properly.

    Issue 2: When you move the Animation Edit dialog in the Graphic
      Window, it can be very slow to redraw the four views.
    Solution 2: The first time you enter Animation mode, you should
      move the dialog so that it does not cover the Graphic Window.
      Once you move it to a suitable location and dismiss it, it will
      appear in that location when reactivated so that you will not be
      required to move it again.

    Issue 3: The animation path will be displayed in gray. Some users
      may not be able to easily see the path if the wireframe display
      of the model is drawn in white.
    Solution 3: You can use the Document Properties dialog to
      change the color of the wireframe display to something that is
      easy to see when drawn with the gray animation path.

    Issue 4: If you activate the View Setup dialog while in
      Animation Edit mode, the single view of the model may not be
      shown even though the outline of the view frustum is shown in
      the proper location.
    Solution 4: The workaround is to press Cancel in the
      View Setup dialog and then activate it again.

    Issue 5: You may have problems generating views along an
      animation path that transitions smoothly through views that
      are straight up or straight down.
    Solution 5: Currently, there is no workaround other than to
      avoid those situations.

    Issue 6: When adjusting the view direction in the animation page
      on a keyframe which is set to "Look In Direction", the small
      green view direction arrows in the orthographic views will
      sometimes not update correctly if you are not using a hardware
      accelerated graphics card.
    Solution 6: To refresh the view, press the F5 key.

    Issue 7: Setting the View Tilt past 90 degrees at an animation
      keyframe will cause the view to begin tilting back towards
      vertical (100 degree tilt looks like 80 degree tilt) instead
      of continuing around full circle.
    Solution 7: Currently, there is no workaround.

    Issue 8: Editing camera path after invoking Display>Draw may
      cause the model not to be redrawn.
    Solution 8: You can force a redraw pressing the F5 key.

    Issue 9: If you load a new animation file while the Path
      or Preview tab is active, you may need to rewind manually.

File Open Dialog:
    Issue 1: When loading a preparation file (.lp) with a scale factor,
      the view is not scaled to reflect the new size of the model.
    Solution 1: Selecting View>Extents will change the view so that it
      reflects the new size of the model.  In a similar manner,
      the file's Process Parameters will not be scaled.  So the amount
      of meshing during radiosity processing and the quality of the
      result is likely to change.

    Issue 2: You can enter a negative scale factor when loading a
      preparation file which may give unexpected results.

File Saving Completion:
    There is no progress meter displayed when saving a file.
    When the file has been completely saved, a message is displayed
    on the status bar. However, this message may not be visible if
    your cursor remained over the File Save toolbar button, thus
    causing the status bar to only show the description of that
    button and not the completion message.

Transformation Dialog:
    The apply button does not stay active if you tab between pages
    when transforming blocks or luminaires.  This requires you to
    reenter values if you tabbed to another page before applying
    the values.

Luminaire Properties Dialog:
    When setting the beam and field angles of a spot distribution,
    you must enter the beam angle after entering the field angle.
    Otherwise, because the beam angle is forced to be smaller than
    the field angle, you may inadvertently modify the beam angle
    to something other than what you desire.

    Closing the Luminaire Properties dialog causes the Luminaire
    icon size to be reset to 1. If you want a value other than 1,
    you must set it on the Document Properties dialog.

Photometric Web Editor:
    Issue: If you adjust the default luminous intensity
      distribution, there is no way to easily restore the
      default values.
    Solution: The workaround is to load the default.ies
      file that is located in the Lightscape\lib\lights\lvs.
      directory. This can be installed by using the Custom option
      during installation and selecting the Sample Libraries for
      installation.

Lighting Analysis Dialog:
    The display modes that are accessed from this dialog are
    activated using the Apply button.  If this dialog is not
    active, then none of these display modes are active.

View Align Dialog:
    Issue 1: If you activate the View Align dialog and move it
      off of the Graphic Window, an image of it may remain on the
      Graphic Window.
    Solution 1: Redraw the Graphic Window by pressing the F5 key.

    Issue 2: As long as the View Align dialog is open, a
      background image will be displayed.  However, if you
      choose to render an image from the Rendering dialog,
      the background image will not be included in the
      rendered image.

Orthogonal Views Show Nothing:
    Issue: If you import a DXF or 3D Studio file, the default
      orthogonal views may not be centered on the model.
    Solution: In order to see the model in one of these
      views simply use the View>Extents operation while in
      the desired view. For example, if you activate the top
      view of an imported DXF file and see nothing, then stay
      in top view and select View>Extents.  This will fit the
      top view to the model.

Delete While Objects Are Selected:
    In solution mode, if you select surfaces from the Graphic
    Window and delete them, only the surfaces that are on active
    layers will be deleted and the ones on inactive layers will be
    deselected. You will be prompted that some selected surfaces
    are on inactive layers before the delete operation is executed.

    In preparation mode, if you select objects in the Graphic
    Window and then delete blocks or luminaires from the block
    or luminaire tables, the selected objects will be deselected.

Area Selection For Luminaires Nested In Blocks:
    Area selection may not work properly for luminaires nested in
    blocks. The workaround is to select the luminaires individually.

Path list settings:
    If Lightscape is unable to display textures, check to make
    sure the path list settings in the Document Properties dialog
    are valid.

Daylight Setup Dialog:
    February 29th is not a valid value in the Daylight
    Setup dialog.  Use either February 28th or March 1st.

    You need to Apply your changes in the Place tab of the
    Daylight Setup dialog in order to see the proper Time Zone in
    the Time tab.

Data Validation in Dialogs:
    The data that is typed into dialog input fields is usually
    checked to determine if it is in the proper range of values
    and of the proper type (alphanumeric or just numeric).
    For some fields (and all sliders), this checking is done as
    you type each character.  For other fields, validation occurs
    when you move the focus to another input field.  And for some
    dialogs, no validation is done until you click an OK, Cancel,
    or Accept button.  This can be the source of some confusion.
    If you get an error message that some data is not in the proper
    range, then edit the data in the field to a valid value so that
    you can continue.  When validation is performed for each key
    you type, you may need to use the mouse to position the cursor
    in a strategic location in the input field so that you can
    type the value you desire.

    For some dialogs, selecting the Close option from the menu
    accessible from the upper left corner of the dialog may cause
    a data validation dialog to appear.  This dialog appears if
    there was invalid information entered in one of the input fields
    before the Close operation was selected.  The validation dialog
    may reappear more than once after pressing the OK button. It will
    eventually close.  If you encounter this problem in the Daylight
    Setup dialog, you may need to open and cancel the dialog again.

    Issue 1: Some dialogs are persistent enough not to be dismissed
      with the Cancel button when they detect incorrect values.
    Solution 1: Correct the values to dismiss the dialog.

    Issue 2: Invoking some dialogs may not bring them to the
      foreground.
    Solution 2: When this occurs, close all occluding dialogs.

    Issue 3: Some dialogs are not dismissed properly if you
      use the Esc key to close them.
    Solution 3: Use the Close or Cancel button where appropriate.

Color Control Sliders:
    The color editor that is used in several dialogs will change
    the background of the sliders while it is in HSV mode.  It
    will not update the slider colors while in RGB mode.  Hue
    and Saturation values may change to zero unexpectedly if
    the Value of the color is set to zero and applied. This is
    because Hue and Saturation become undefined when the Value
    is zero.

Display of Real Numbers:
    Floating point numbers may be displayed using scientific
    notation or shown with many significant digits.

DXF File Translation Limitations
--------------------------------
3D Solid Entities implemented in AutoCAD are not currently supported
directly. A workaround that generates reasonable results is to
use the AutoCAD 3dsout command and then re-import the 3D Studio file
back into AutoCAD and then out via DXF to Lightscape.

When converting 2D closed polylines or 3D planar closed polylines when
capping is on, no capping will be performed if the polyline is self-
intersecting.

For ease of use after importing into Lightscape we suggest that you not
scale inserts in your DXF file.

Region, Text, Shape, Dimension, and XRef DXF entities are not
supported by Lightscape.

3D Studio R4 File Translation Limitations
-----------------------------------------
The following information applies to import of 3D Studio R4 files.

3D Studio import relies on Autodesk 3D Studio file toolkit
to read in the 3D Studio file.  Due to problems in the toolkit,
you may encounter problems loading older versions of 3D Studio
files, as well as files generated using the Syndesis translator.
If this happens, you can use 3D Studio to help filter the bad files:

1. Start 3D Studio on your computer.
2. Read in a file that fails to load into Lightscape.
3. Immediately save this file with another name.
4. Load this new file into Lightscape.

3D Studio import creates a polygon face for each face of a
3D Studio mesh object.  For some models this can create a very large
model. By using additional layers and creating new blocks you
can re-group the entities to make the model more convenient to use.

3D Studio lights have no geometry associated with them; however,
their position is used in extents calculations. This is common when
importing a sun. Therefore, the model may appear off-center after
the View>Extents operation.

The 3D Studio translator does not currently support object
index colors.

It is typical for 3D Studio data to not have diffuse colors
set for materials that have textures.  Unless you use the Textures
option on the Process Parameters dialog during processing,
everything will be black.

Lightscape does not support 3D Studio procedural textures.

If you cannot see your 3D Studio data after importing, try
using the Document Properties dialog to change the background
color or turn off fog.  Sometimes the wireframe is displayed
in black which can be impossible to see if the background is black.

There is a unit setting in 3DS/MAX within the preferences. Users should
ensure that this setting is correct for their current units. The file
will correctly translate to 3DS/R4 and thus into Lightscape.

Using Command Line Batch Utilities
----------------------------------
In order to run the Lightscape command line utilities, you must
open a Command Prompt shell.  This is the MS-DOS icon in the Main
application group in the Program Manager (NT 3.51) or on the Start menu
(Windows 95 and NT 4.0).  If the Lightscape\bin directory is in your path,
then you can just type the name of the desired utility along with the
appropriate option flags. To set your path, use the Control Panel to
access the System dialog.

When running batch utilities, be aware that your system's performance
is greatly slowed by using any screen saver other than the blank screen.
This is especially true for the OpenGL screen savers.

When running utilities, if Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Break is typed while a
file is loaded/saved over the network, the operating system may crash,
which requires you to reboot the computer.  This seems to occur when
using NFS software.  Make sure files are on your local disk, or avoid
typing Ctrl-C and Ctrl-Break during file I/O operations across an
NFS link.

If you are using the -alpha option of lsray, then your output image
must be of type TGA or RGB. These are the only formats that
store alpha channels. The lsray program will not warn you if you are
not using one of these image types in this situation.

In order for the lsrender utility to properly capture an image when
using the -w option, its window should be on top and not be overlapped
by the windows of any other applications.

If you are rendering an animation on more than one computer and using
lsrender you should make sure that your Windows Display controls are set
to be the same on all computers. In particular, the numbers of colors
displayed should be the same. This will make sure there are no differences
in the appearance of the frames.

The lsmkray utility expects position and radius to be in meters
regardless of the units used for your model.

Miscellaneous
-------------
Uninstall does not remove all files:
    The uninstall program is careful to only remove the files
    and directories that it installed.  If you add files in
    those directories, then the uninstall program will
    not remove those items and their parent directories. You
    should manually delete them as appropriate before reinstalling
    Lightscape in the same location.  For example, starting the
    Lightscape help system will create a hidden lscape.gid file
    in the Lightscape\bin directory. The uninstaller will then not
    remove this directory even though it looks empty.


Display Problems:
    We have found significant display problems with the
    Windows 95 OpenGL libraries.  This could cause inaccurate
    redraws to occur on your system.  In some cases, the Lightscape
    display may appear frozen.  However, you can save your work
    and restart Lightscape to continue.

Luminaire Libraries:
    In the Sample Files portion of the installation, there are
    libraries of common lamp values.  These are provided in several
    forms including Lightscape luminaire libraries, DXF, and AutoCAD DWG
    format.  This allows you to include the geometry in your original
    model.  It can then be replaced by using the block substitution
    technique when you import the DXF file to replace the blocks with the
    corresponding luminaires in the library file.  These files are
    located in the Lightscape\lib\lights\lvs directory.

SGI Image files:
    RGB images generated by Lightscape and transferred to SGI computers
    may not be recognized by some SGI utilities like ipaste and ibrowse.
    They are recognized by the newer utilities such as imgview.

Documentation Limitations
-------------------------
The User's Guide claims that sun and sky sources are processed after
all luminaires in the scene.  This is incorrect. No ordering of any
kind is guaranteed during processing.

There are no thumbnails stored in the Acrobat(r) files. You can still
use the thumbnail view in the Acrobat(r) reader to quickly jump to pages
in the document.

Interaction with Other Applications
-----------------------------------
REGCLEAN - This is a utility from Microsoft. DO NOT RUN this utility
    after installing Lightscape. It will erase your authorization
    information.

Internet Explorer 4.0 beta - Several users of Internet Explorer 4.0
    beta on Windows 95 have experienced problems running Lightscape
    on the same system. We suggest that you remove Internet Explorer
    4.0 beta before running Lightscape.