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

Any suggestions are welcome,

Bob

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"Bob Nagler" <bna### [at] lblgov> wrote in message
news:403a49ed$1@news.povray.org...
> 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, ...
> I just tried a cilinder with transmit and filter on. Emission does'n
> seem to work either.

Could be a "too low max_trace_level" problem (highly likely) or needing
'merge' when doing CSG of the shapes. And if using media, the samples
number(s) need to be adjusted higher. Also, since you mentioned shadows, be
sure to set the object to have 'no_shadow' too. Of course that would only be
if you are using just filtered pigments on the cylinders.

Lasers have been done in the past, so searching for some here in the
newsgroups (p.b.scene-files or p.b.images groups mainly) should net a few
examples. Even a web search could certainly bring something up.

Although there is a laser.pov scene file included with POV-Ray it dates from
early on, before media or parallel lights existed. Which brings me to giving
a URL showing all the scene files already rendered, really helps to
reference them:
http://caramel.oc.chemie.tu-darmstadt.de/lemmi/povray35.html
There's a version 3.1 reference too.

Bob H.

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Way Cool, thanks for the link to the scenes.
I am looking for a texture of stucco, white, in a swirl pattern (or any
pattern) and always interested in the wood textures.
Anyone know where I can find the stucco?


I

-- 

Stephen and/or Kathleen
"Hughes, B." <omn### [at] charternet> wrote in message
news:403a55e3$1@news.povray.org...
> "Bob Nagler" <bna### [at] lblgov> wrote in message
> news:403a49ed$1@news.povray.org...
> > 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, ...
> > I just tried a cilinder with transmit and filter on. Emission does'n
> > seem to work either.
>
> Could be a "too low max_trace_level" problem (highly likely) or needing
> 'merge' when doing CSG of the shapes. And if using media, the samples
> number(s) need to be adjusted higher. Also, since you mentioned shadows,
be
> sure to set the object to have 'no_shadow' too. Of course that would only
be
> if you are using just filtered pigments on the cylinders.
>
> Lasers have been done in the past, so searching for some here in the
> newsgroups (p.b.scene-files or p.b.images groups mainly) should net a few
> examples. Even a web search could certainly bring something up.
>
> Although there is a laser.pov scene file included with POV-Ray it dates
from
> early on, before media or parallel lights existed. Which brings me to
giving
> a URL showing all the scene files already rendered, really helps to
> reference them:
> http://caramel.oc.chemie.tu-darmstadt.de/lemmi/povray35.html
> There's a version 3.1 reference too.
>
> Bob H.
>
>

Post a reply to this message

"Stephen" <pen### [at] shawca> wrote in message
news:403ab92f$1@news.povray.org...
> Way Cool, thanks for the link to the scenes.
> I am looking for a texture of stucco, white, in a swirl pattern (or any
> pattern) and always interested in the wood textures.
> Anyone know where I can find the stucco?

Well, wallstucco.pov file is in the scenes\advanced subfolder.

I can recall at least one or two others shown in the images newsgroup in the
past but not sure if any pov script exists. My search didn't come up with
something except two images.

Bob H.

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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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Nice Link!

However this one needs small corrections:

http://caramel.oc.chemie.tu-darmstadt.de/lemmi/povray35/pentmap.html

--Theo
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