"cbpypov" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to render a high quality "cover art" for a physics thesis
> (nanophotonics). I have basically two questions:
>
>   1. What is the best way to generate a "glowing field distribution"?
>   2. What is the best way to illustrate a light ray or "photon path" coming from
> an emitter, say a small glowing sphere

I would say that you should look at Paul Nylander's work
http://www.bugman123.com/index.html
as he's and engineer, and has done an awful lot of very professional quality
scientific visualization with POV-Ray.

> For 1): Say I have field values in 3D that I could assign to desired colors and
> brightness values. So that that I have e.g. a list of (x, y, z, R, G, B,
> brightness).
.....
> So how can I achieve something like
> this?

You use an EMISSIVE media.
I'd also consider generating your field as a df3 file, and then you can "sculpt"
the media density with that df3 information.

Also see the owrk of Paul Bourke:

http://paulbourke.net/miscellaneous/povexamples/

I presently do not enjoy media, and almost never use it, so others may have
other / better ideas, and they will assuredly have more details on HOW to use
media to do what you want.

> for 2): They should moreover be small particles emitting focussed beams or maybe
> glowing wiggly rays. Does anyone have an example of how to implement this?

I'd say that you'd need to define a vector field, and then use that to place and
orient your line/ray/wiggle shapes.

Serendipitously, I recently tried to implement a "Perlin noise flow field" from
Dan Shiffman's Coding Challenge (he uses Processing):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjoM9oKOAKY
in POV-Ray, but I couldn't work out the last bits and get it to function
properly.
Perhaps I can supply my code in its present state and you could use that as a
good starting point (and perhaps debug it in the process  :D  )

> Thanks in advance

Certainly:   good luck!

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