In article <3A3C43D0.9E91475C@faricy.net>, David Fontaine 
<dav### [at] faricynet> wrote:

> Does a suspension refract? It's a suspension of smoke particles in 
> air, and the ior of the air is the same inside the flame.

It is far more than a suspension of smoke particles in the air...there 
are also various vaporized compounds and ions that will also affect the 
density and ior. In addition, flames coming from a pressurized gas 
released through a small hole will have an even higher density at the 
beginning, flames from a pre-mixed gas will also be a bit different, 
etc...


> Heat also refracts light, like the puddle-on-the-road mirage. So 
> light would bend away from the center of the flame, no?

As mentioned, it isn't the heat, it is the varying density caused by the 
heat, and since the heat isn't constant and the composition of the flame 
at each point can also have an effect, the effect is more complex than 
simply bending light away from the center of the flame. Then you have 
things like turbulence, etc...

Of course, in just doing artistic images in POV, if you need the ior at 
all (and assuming someone writes the patch for variable ior) you could 
just do a spherical patterned ior...but the original question was about 
absorption.

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

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