Question: How to properly set up lighting in PicoGK

[Greg66]

Hi everyone,

I’m currently integrating PicoGK into a larger tool and I’m trying to understand how lighting is supposed to be set up in PicoGK.

So far, I have found:

• The PicoGK NuGet package does not contain any light setups
• The GitHub repository also does not include any example Light ZIPs
• The online book Coding for Computational Engineers does not mention lighting or IBL
• The Library.oViewer() API only exposes LoadLightSetup(path) but no further lighting controls
• Tools that were historically used to generate IBL ZIPs (IBLBaker, pmrem.io, etc.) are no longer available or maintained

This leaves me unsure what the recommended workflow is today.

My questions:

1. Is there an official or recommended way to generate a Light ZIP compatible with PicoGK?
   (diffuse.hdr, specular.hdr, brdf.bin, light.json)

2. Is there an example Light ZIP that can be used as a reference?
   Even a minimal one would help.

3. Is there any documentation on the expected format or parameters of the Light ZIP?

4. Is the Light ZIP approach still the intended way to control lighting in PicoGK, or is there a more modern alternative?

I’m not looking for anything fancy — just a reliable way to get consistent lighting for technical geometry (CFD patches, CAD‑like surfaces, etc.).

Any guidance or examples would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
Gregor

[LinKayser]

Hi @Greg66,

PicoGK uses Image Based Lighting (IBL) with two HDR textures, one for diffuse, one for specular rendering. This is about the most modern way to do lighting, but it comes with the downside that you have to generate these maps separately (vs. placing lights as objects).

Both the PicoGK repository and the NuGet package contain the necessary lighting setup, in NuGet it's contained as a NuGet resource. You can find the default lighting environment in the assets folder of PicoGK.

https://github.com/leap71/PicoGK/tree/main/assets

There is a number of programs that can generate the required HDR DDS textures, I used HDR Light Studio.

Best,
Lin