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From: aglew@ccvaxa.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.graphics
Subject: Wave-front ray tracing?
Message-ID: <13300001@ccvaxa>
Date: Sat, 1-Mar-86 20:12:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ccvaxa.13300001
Posted: Sat Mar  1 20:12:00 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Mar-86 04:46:53 EST
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Nf-ID: #N:ccvaxa:13300001:000:1187
Nf-From: ccvaxa.UUCP!aglew    Mar  1 19:12:00 1986


Humble query, but first, an apology: I'm not into graphics. I've taken a
course in computer graphics, and I do like computational geometry, but
I'm not interested enough in graphics to read the journals on a regular
basis.

Now, background: one of my friends is into graphics. He keeps going on about
ray-tracing, and the like, optical techniques that require humongous amounts
of computation power, and are the reasons why Lucasfilm buys Crays and
Abel Associates buys Goulds (modest plug here).

Query: might not wave-front type computations be more efficient? Take a
wave-front from your light source (spherical, cylindrical, or planar)
start it propagating, and compute its first intersection with an object.
Parts of the wave-front will be modified - light "densities" will be changing
all the time. You might even consider polarization effects. Of course,
the more reflections/refractions you have, the more wave-fronts you'll have
to handle, but some will fade away eventually.

Has this been tried as an alternative to ray-tracing? Any references?
Any overwhelming reasons why it won't work? The only thing I can see is that
it is hard to work backwards from eye to light source.