The Materials and Geometry Format
Version 1.0, May 1995
Greg Ward,
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory,
GJWard@Lbl.Gov
Application Notes
The MGF language grew out of a joint investigation into physical
representations for rendering undertaken by the author
(Greg Ward of LBL) and Holly Rushmeier of the National
Institute of Standards and Technology.
After deciding that a complete and robust specification was
an extreme challenge, we shelved the project for another time.
A few months later, the author spoke with Ian Ashdown and Robert
Shakespeare, who are both members of the IES Computing Committee,
about the need for extending the existing data standard to
include luminaire geometry and near-field photometry.
We then moved forward as a team towards a somewhat less ambitious
approach to physical materials and geometry that had the advantage
of simplicity and the possibility of support with a standard parser
library.
The author went to work over the next two months
on the detailed design of the language
and an ANSI-C parser, with regular feedback from the other three
team members.
Several months and several versions later, we arrived at release
1.0, which is the occasion of this document's creation.
Funding for this work... would be nice.