"Jellby" <me### [at] privacynet> wrote in message 
news:l2l### [at] badulaqueunexes...
> Could it maybe be "faked" in some way, similarly to how the caustics 
> keyword
> fakes photons?
>

The Pov Reference Manual says under "Language Things that don't work as one 
expects":
"
"Can I specify variable IOR for an object? Is there any patch that can do 
this? Is it possible?"
Short answer: No.

Long answer:

There are basically two ways of defining variable IOR for an object: IOR 
changing on the surface of the object and IOR changing throughout inside the 
object.

The first one is physically incorrect. For uniform IOR it simulates physical 
IOR quite correctly since for objects with uniform density the light bends 
at the surface of the object and nowhere else. However if the density of the 
object is not uniform but changes throughout its volume, the light will bend 
inside the object, while travelling through it, not only on the surface of 
the object.

This is why variable IOR on the surface of the object is incorrect and the 
possibility of making this was removed in POV-Ray 3.1. "

I wonder why they kept faked caustics in Pov-Ray when we have photons that 
can do it better, and took out surface variable ior leaving us with no 
replacement.


-- 
-Nekar Xenos-
----------------------------------------
"The truth is out there..."

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