ALTA  alpha
Data Conversion Tutorial

In this tutorial, we will see how to convert data from the red-fabric dataset from the MERL library to a 2D slice in different parametrizations (please click on the picture to change the horizontal position of the vertical cut):

 red-fabric

Data conversion

The first step is download and convert the dataset into ALTA internal format. This will ease the manipulation of data afterwards:

$wget http://people.csail.mit.edu/wojciech/BRDFDatabase/brdfs/red-fabric.binary  will download the dataset and $ data2data --input red-fabric.binary --in-data data_merl --output red-fabric.exr --out-data data_brdf_slice


this conversion requires to use the data_merl and data_brdf_slice plugins to load MERL binary files and convert them into and HDR image slice. By default, the data_brdf_slice exports in the STARK_2D parametrization. But it is also possible to use other kind of 2D parametrization such as RUSIN_TH_TD using the --param [string] option (see params for the complete list):

$data2data --input red-fabric.binary --in-data data_merl --output red-fabric.exr --out-data data_brdf_slice --param RUSIN_TH_TD  It is also possible to select 3D parametrization and complete the third component with the --angle [float] parameter. Note that this parameter accept angles in degrees: $ data2data --input red-fabric.binary --in-data data_merl --output red-fabric.exr --out-data data_brdf_slice --param RUSIN_TH_TD_PD --angle 90


Here we provide the resulting data file and the associated Python and XML scripts: