["Kosina.Josef" <kos### [at] felcvutcz>]
| when I found out that Povray does not use dispersion but just some 'fake
| caustics'. First, I did not found nothing more about 'fake caustics' 
| - I mean what exactly and wow it does.
| Second, does anyone here know some tool which REALY simulate dispersion?

You're mixing terms here. Caustics are the bright spots you get behind 
a transparent object due to the focusing of refracted light, or the 
bright spots in front of a refracting object. 

Dispersion has to do with how different frequencies of light is
refracted differently. E.g. How a prism can split white light into all the
colors of the rainbow.

POV-Ray has a form of fake caustics, but can also do "real" caustics
(since POV-Ray v3.5) through the use of photon-maps. Also, real dispersion
effects can be added to photon-map effects, but the computational cost
is high. 

If you download the newest POV-Ray several scenes demonstrating
the use of photon maps are included.

--  
It's a dark day for mad science.

Post a reply to this message