Nonlinear Ray Tracing

project duration: 1992-1994

Nonlinear ray tracing deals with nonlinear light propagation. Sources of nonlinearity, e.g., gravity centers, gravity lines, chaotic dynamical systems, and parametric curved rays, are discussed. Curved rays are either represented iteratively or hierarchically. Algorithms for the intersection test of a curved ray with a 3D object are investigated. Sample images of a test implementation show the feasibility of the approach. Applications of nonlinear ray tracing are visualization of relativistic effects, visualization of the geometric behavior of nonlinear dynamical systems, visualization of the movement of charged particles in a force field (e.g., electron movement), virtual reality and arts.

For detailed information see:

• Eduard Gröller, "Nonlinear Ray Tracing: Visualizing Strange Worlds", The Visual Computer (1995) 11:263-274.
• A Technical Report of the above paper is available as well. It does not, however, include the following results page:

  

This page is maintained by Eduard Gröller. It was last updated on November 20, 1998.
If you have any comments, please send a message to edi@cg.tuwien.ac.at.