The RenderMan Interface - Paul Bourke

RiContext (ctx1);
...
There is no RIB equivalent for context switching. Additionally, other language bindings
may have no need for these routines, or may provide an obvious mechanism in the language
for this facility (such as class instances and methods in C++).
2.2 Bytestream Protocol
This document also describes a byte stream representation of the RenderMan Interface,
known as the RenderMan Interface Bytestream, or RIB. This byte stream serves as both
a network transport protocol for modeling system clients to communicate requests to a
remote rendering service, and an archive file format to save requests for later submission
to a renderer.
The RIB protocol provides both an ASCII and binary encoding of each request, in order to
satisfy needs for both an understandable (potentially) interactive interface to a rendering
server and a compact encoded format which minimizes transmission time and file storage
costs. Some requests have multiple versions, for efficiency or to denote special cases of the
request.
The semantics of each RIB request are identical to the corresponding C entry point, except
as specifically noted in the text. In Part I of this document, each RIB request is presented in
its ASCII encoding, using the following format:
RIB BINDING
Request parameter1 parameter2... parameterN
Explanation of the special semantics of the RIB protocol for this request.
At the top of the description, parameter1 through parameterN are the parameters that the request
requires. The notation ‘–’ in the parameter position indicates that the request expects
no parameters. Normally the parameter names suggest their purpose, e.g., x, y, or angle.
In RIB, square brackets ([ and ]) delimit arrays. Integers will be automatically promoted if
supplied for parameters which require floating point values. A parameter list is simply a
sequence of string-array pairs. There is no explicit termination symbol as in the C binding.
Example parameter lists are:
”P” [0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11]
”distance” [.5] ”roughness” [1.2]
The details of the lexical syntax of both the ASCII and binary encodings of the RIB protocol
are presented in Appendix C, Language Binding Details.
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