Polarization

BRL-CAD has two optics libraries, LIBOPTICAL and LIBMULTISPECRAL, for simulating energy transport such as light and other wavelengths. We'd like to be better at simulating more advanced ray interactions such as a light ray passing through a prism (birefringent polarizer) that gets split into component wavelengths or light that passes through a polarization filter removing high frequency light being reflected off a shiny surface. In theory, our multispectral optics library can be used for both purposes since it supports rays representing bundles of wavelengths.

This task involves performing a review and overhaul of BRL-CAD's existing multispectral library to make sure it support light ray polarization. A demonstration of polarizing light along diffraction, diffusion, or other filtering effects would get added to BRL-CAD's main ray tracer and enabled as a new lighting mode. Support will likely need to be added for tracking the angular wavelength property, splitting diffracted rays, and combining rays.

References

• src/libmultispectral
• src/liboptical
• src/rt
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarizer
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_filter

Requirements

• Strong familiarity with C