> Hi Pov Ray community,
>
> i have started creating a animation where a laserbeam should go through a solid,
> rounded glass box. So i created a hollow cone with gaussian distributed red
> glowing media in it. I overlapped it with the glass box (ior = 1.5).
> =>  there are surfaces with different ior in the glass box visible.
>

> almost 20h on this problem.
>
>
> Tanks in advance
> Roll
>
>
>

Usualy, the best way to make a beam visible is to use scatering media.
As your beam get refracted and possibly reflected, you need to use photons.

That way, you no longer need to fake the beam's path, the media makes it 
visible, and the photons will make the path of the refracted ray visible 
along the real path. POV-Rqay will do all the math for you.

You need:

1 light_source with cylindrical and parallel to make your beam emiter. 
Use radius, falloff and tightness to controll the spread of your light.
Suggested starting values: radius 0 falloff 1 tightness 3
(a cylindrical, parllel light_source is perfect to make a laser beam)

Scatering media. ONLY use intervals 1 and adjust samples as needed.

A photons block in the global_settings section:
photons{spacing 0.1 media 100}

A photons block on your target object:
photons{target refraction on reflection on collect off}

If you use a larger media container object, give it this photons block:
photons{pass_through}

You don't need any photons block for the light_source. All 
non-shadowless light_source have this default photons block:
photons{reflection on refraction on area_light off}

That way, if you ever change the shape of your object or the direction 
of the beam, you don't have to recalculate the path.


Alain

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