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I mentioned at the end of this thread...

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... hp?t=24529

.... that you could track the direction of light from a light plane and then set up the cmera (maybe using a laser). Anyway i set up something like that but it probably wouldn't be pratical cos you can't move anything in real time but i think its sort of interesting anyway.

This is a light (like the laser key ring lights) reflecting from a mirrored cylinder.

How did you make the beam visible?

I tracked the light using the fog material set up (from michaelplogue) applied to 2 corrugated objects:





Here's the light without it tracked. The bottom one shows it set up with a different nd ratio of the core and cladding of the light case, which gives a wider light patch.

Cool trick!

Can an actual laser be set up with Maxwell? I haven't read into it enough.

Visibility of a collimated beam is currently not possible. It needs atmospheric scattering.

Ok i dont know much about lasers but you have the small lasers (i.e. on a keychain) then more powerful lasers - a less powerful keychain laser needs some kind of atmospheric scattering/fog/air moisture/dust or whatever to be seen in real life but cant some laser traces be seen without that?

Or does the less powerful laser just need more atmospheric scattering - but the more powerful laser still needs some to be seen?

I.e. do you need atmospheric scattering (in real life) to see this?

As i understand it (or misunderstand it) ,it's not the size of the laser that determines it's visibility, more than often the landbased and aircraftbased lasers are all invisible but they have smaller red or green lasers to guide them to their target.

/ Max

I would have thought its to do with the wavelength and intensity but i know nothing.

the visibility of a laserbeam has always to do with athmospheric scattering! you wouldnt see any beam in an evacuated space.

Only the intensity of the beam's visibility depends on the lasers intensity.. not the visibility in general.
as far as i can tell, i would say the laser depicted in wills picture ionizes the air.. so the beams visibility depends more on the ionized medium than on common athmospheric scattering. But even in this case - no medium -> no visibility.

Incorporated my laser into a laser pen....



Tried to get it to shine through a pint glass but unfortunately nothing shows unless the material is lambertian (hence the glass is just black at the moment). I've tried loads of glass materials, activating dispersion etc but i don't see any laser on the glass. Maybe i should shine the laser so that it would hit the floor the other side of the glass and see what happens. I've tried a lot of weird shaped glass/plastic objects too. Any tips would be useful.

Way cool Will .....

I just thought.

The Terminator may have been a more impressive model.

Cool test Will. That laser pointer is also extremely realistic - nice job on that.

b

very nice, make me think of the old Thomas dispersion test