In article <391A0F33.9C7F229E@psu.edu>, Paul Jones <pdj### [at] psuedu> 
wrote:

> a while back in p.b.i there were some images of "lasers" using photons
> and media... how did you guys produce the light source which does not
> have a cone of reflected light associated with it??? I can't seem to get
> one to look good. Any special tricks?

I think you are looking for a cylinderical light source. As I remember, 
in MegaPOV, the light "beams" from a cylinderical light source are 
parallel, unlike in the official version, where they all come from a 
single point(they are just constrained to a cylinder). Don't forget that 
photons don't work properly with cylinder lights(this might be fixed in 
0.5, though).

You could also use a point source with parallel enabled, and use a 
shadow object or projected_through to confine it to a specific beam 
shape.

For getting the light to interact with the media, my advice is to check 
the photon mapping docs and work from code in the demo files at first.

-- 
Christopher James Huff - Personal e-mail: chr### [at] yahoocom
TAG(Technical Assistance Group) e-mail: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
Personal Web page: http://chrishuff.dhs.org/
TAG Web page: http://tag.povray.org/

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