In article <40678a21$1@news.povray.org>, Gary <cre### [at] montanadslnet> 
wrote:

> For example, if I define a tank object, reflector object(s), and a light 
> source(the sun), will Povray not only show the light that shines 
> directly on the tank from the sun, but also show the light that is 
> reflected onto the tank by the reflector?

It can render an image of the tank with light being reflected onto it. 
With some added media, it can show the path the light takes through the 
air (the optics.pov sample scene demonstrates this). It can't compute 
the actual light intensities though...you can't get the amount of light 
that hits the tank as a single numeric value, you get a picture of the 
tank. You *could* hack that into the code, but it would require poking 
around in the photon code...it'd be easier to write a custom simulation, 
patch it into POV as a function and use the scene language as a control 
language for it. Be interesting to use a genetic algorithm...


> I am only interested in seeing the pattern of light that results from 
> each candidate reflector geometry -- I do not need Povray to show light 
> intensities that are exactly true to the physics.

In that case, POV-Ray's photon mapping ought to be sufficient.

-- 
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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