Basil S. Lewis, MD. wrote:

> noa### [at] writemecom
>
> I am now learning optics in school, and would like to point out the
> following optic errors in POV-Ray. I don't know how realistic pov is
> supposed to get, but I hope that one day these errors will be fixed.

Ah, I also made this observation when I was working on my submission for the
maths & physics round of the IRTC. I was trying to model a workbench from
the physics lab in school with some optic equipment set up in one of the
classic experiments (like most of my attempts to finish an image I didn't
get it done in time, actually I never finished it). What I saw was that you
can create functional lenses if you specify ior and use Gauss' lens maker
formula. I once created a pair of binoculars this way.

POV physical model is a bit limited though, as you have noticed. Since light
in POV doesn't have wave properties. As strange as it may seem, white light
in POV is monochromatic. In fact all light is treated as monochromatic, you
don't get any spectral separation of light, but you can fake it.

I guess the reason is that POV is not supposed to be a physical
representation of the world, but rather a tool to create beautiful (and some
ugly) images. It would be rather cool though if you could (easily, you can
always fake these things) tell POV that your scene is earth, baheve like it.
Perhaps it is time for a new keyword:

universe{newtonian}

or

universe{POV-rayian}

Hmm, let's see what the future holds for us.

//Hans Wachtmeister

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