Luminance and Render Scene Environment Management Tools

© 2001 Winston Mitchell

Upgraders from v7.1 should be happy to know that the management tools for materials in v8 work the same as they do in v7.1 with one exception. The restore function in v8 resets propin.dat to the pristine contents of default.mat.

The management tools for luminances and render scene environments work the same way as the material tools.

Because of the tools are so nearly the same as in v7.1, rather than re-write the article for v8 I have chosen to create this article as an addendum.

The following table shows for each type of rendering element where the files are and what their names are.
Note that the discussion in the materials article about the implications of the ".mat" extension for Microsoft Access users only applies to the default materials file as the new rendering element default files have a ".dat" extension. The article discussion about "Implications for upgraders" does not apply for the new rendering elements, as they did not exist before v8.

Standard File locations:
File Version Path (make appropriate substitutions) Directory\Name
Default Values All C:\Program Files\IMSI\TCWPn\Program\ Luminance\Default.dat
Materials\Default.mat
RenderSceneEnv\Default.dat
Working Data 8 & 9 C:\Program Files\IMSI\TCWPn\Program\ Luminance\Luminance.dat
Materials\propin.dat
RenderSceneEnv\sceneenv.dat
10 & later C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\
IMSI\TurboCAD\11.0\Professional\

Revisions:

12/8/01
Original post
12/17/01
Updated to reflect change in restore function in v8
4/11/05
Updated for new file structures

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