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
PERFORMANCES
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.