commit 4cfe40ab2ae623efca898e4f7213e52f31d98a6a
parent b8a62298fd63202adc464d7c74fa638e3731101d
Author: Vincent Forest <vincent.forest@meso-star.com>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2017 11:57:51 +0200
Rewrite the README file
Diffstat:
| M | README.md | | | 53 | +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------- |
1 file changed, 43 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
@@ -1,11 +1,37 @@
# Solstice
-The purpose of this program is to estimate the solar flux in complex solar
-facilities. It has been developed in the scope of the Solstice project, in
+The purpose of this program is to compute the total power collected by a
+concentrated solar plant, and to evaluate various efficiencies for each primary
+reflector: it compute losses due to cosine effect, to shadowing and
+masking, to orientation and surface irregularities, to reflectivity and to
+atmospheric transmission. The efficiency for each one of these effects is
+subsequently computed for each reflector, which provides insightful information
+when looking for the optimal design of a concentrated solar plant. Note that
+Solstice relies on Monte-Carlo method, which means that every result is
+provided with its numerical accuracy.
+
+In addition of the aforementioned computations, Solstice can render an image of
+the solar plant, either with a simple ray-caster or with a path-tracing
+algorithm that correctly handles the materials of the scene.
+
+Solstice is designed to handle complex solar plants: any number of reflectors
+can be specified (planes, conics, cylindro-parabolic, etc.) and positioned in
+3D space, with a possibility for 1-axis and 2-axis auto-orientation with
+respect to the sun direction. CAO geometries can be added to the solar plant
+thanks to the support of the STereo Lithography file format. Multiple materials
+can be used, as long as the relevant physical properties are provided (matte,
+mirror, dielectric, etc.). Spectral effects are also taken into account: it is
+possible to define the spectral distribution of any physical property,
+including the input solar spectrum and the absorption of the atmosphere, at any
+spectral resolution.
+
+Solstice has been developed in the scope of the Solstice project, in
collaboration with the
[Laboratory of Excellence Solstice](http://www.labex-solstice.fr) and the
[PROMES](http://www.promes.cnrs.fr/index.php?page=home-en) laboratory of the
National Center for Scientific Research ([CNRS](http://www.cnrs.fr/index.php)).
+Refer to the Solstice man pages for more informations on the provided
+functionalities.
## How to build
@@ -16,20 +42,27 @@ It also depends on the
[RSys](https://gitlab.com/vaplv/rsys/),
[Solstice-Anim](https://gitlab.com/meso-star/solstice-anim/),
[Solstice-Solver](https://gitlab.com/meso-star/solstice-solver/),
-[Star-3DUT](https://gitlab.com/meso-star/star-3dut/) and,
-[Star-SP](https://gitlab.com/meso-star/star-sp/) libraries.
+[Star-3DUT](https://gitlab.com/meso-star/star-3dut/),
+[Star-SP](https://gitlab.com/meso-star/star-sp/) and
+[Star-STL](https://gitlab.com/meso-star/star-stm/) libraries.
+The documentation is written with the
+[AsciiDoc](http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/) text format and relies on its
+tool suite to generate HTML and/or ROFF man pages. If the AsciiDoc tools cannot
+be find, the documentation will be not built.
First ensure that CMake is installed on your system. Then install the RCMake
-package as well as all the aforementioned prerequisites. Finally generate the
+package as well as the aforementioned prerequisites. Finally generate the
project from the `cmake/CMakeLists.txt` file by appending to the
-`CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH` variable the install directories of its dependencies.
+`CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH` variable the install directories of its dependencies. The
+resulting project can be edited, built, tested and installed as any CMake
+project. Refer to the [CMake](https://cmake.org/documentation) for further
+informations ond CMake.
## Licenses
Solstice is developed by [|Meso|Star>](http://www.meso-star.com) for the
[National Center for Scientific Research](http://www.cnrs.fr/index.php) (CNRS).
-It is a free software copyright (C) CNRS 2016-2017 and it is released under the
-[OSI](http://opensource.org)-approved GPL v3+ license. You are welcome to
-redistribute it under certain conditions; refer to the COPYING file for
-details.
+This is a free software copyright (C) CNRS 2016-2017 released under the GPL v3+
+license: GNU GPL version 3 or later. You are welcome to redistribute it under
+certain conditions; refer to the COPYING file for details.
