Docker

RenderToolbox uses Docker to distribute pre-built executables including renderers.

Docker is a great tool to distributing applications and their dependencies in one package called an "image". The idea is you install Docker on your machine, and then you can run all the Docker images that you and others create. Docker is available for Linux, OS X, and Windows.

Note that on Linux, you may need to add your user to the "docker" user group. This will allow RenderToolbox to use Docker without using sudo and requiring a password. Here's how you can add the current user to the docker group.

sudo groupadd docker
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Images

Here are the images that RenderToolbox expects to work with. If Docker is installed, RenderToolbox will use these images automatically.

Mitsuba Spectral

The image ninjaben/mitsuba-spectral contains a pre-built version of Mitsuba v0.5.0, configured for spectral rendering with 31 spectrum bands spanning 395nm-405nm.

Example usage:

docker run -ti ninjaben/mitsuba-spectral mitsuba --help

Mitsuba RGB

The image ninjaben/mitsuba-rgb contains a pre-built version of Mitsuba v0.5.0, configured for standard RGB rendering.

Example usage:

docker run -ti ninjaben/mitsuba-rgb mitsuba --help

PBRT

The image pbrt-v2-spectral-docker contains a pre-built version of PBRT v2. This is a customized version of PBRT called pbrt-v2-spectral, configured for spectral rendering with 32 spectrum bands spanning 395nm-415nm. In addition, this version produces multi-spectral "dat" image files instead of standard RGB files.

Example usage:

docker run -ti ninjaben/pbrt-v2-spectral-docker pbrt --help

exr-tools

The image ninjaben/exrtools-docker contains a pre-built version of exr-tools, which RenderToolbox will use to convert texture images to exr format, which is compatible with both Mitsuba and PBRT.

Example usage:

docker run -ti ninjaben/exrtools-docker exrtopng --help