In article <403a49ed$1@news.povray.org>, Bob Nagler <bna### [at] lblgov> 
wrote:

> Does anyone know of a good way to create a laser beam. They way I tried 
> it always looks bad when two beams intersect, or when the beam is viewed 
> through a glass surface (this is crucial in my case). In these cases the 
> color changes (sometimes to black), you get shadows, ...

Well, "good" is different depending on what you're doing. If you're 
doing optics simulations, such as a light maze, use photons and 
scattering media. Look at the advanced demo scene optics.pov for one 
example.
Your black spot problems sounds like a max_trace_level issue...POV stops 
tracing after so many surfaces. Raising max_trace_level would prevent it 
from being a problem.


> I just tried a cilinder with transmit and filter on. Emission does'n 
> seem to work either.

Make sure your cylinders are hollow...this is a very common mistake. And 
that they aren't filtering out the media color...if you're making lasers 
with media-filled cylinders, it's best to use a plain rgbf 1 pigment, 
making the cylinders perfectly clear and letting the media show the 
laser.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: <chr### [at] tagpovrayorg>
http://tag.povray.org/

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