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Caustic (optics)

 
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Caustic (optics)
 
 
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In optics
Optics

Optics is the study of the behavior and properties of light including its optical phenomena with matter and its imaging by optical instruments....
, a caustic is the envelope of light rays reflected
Reflection (physics)

Reflection is the change in direction of a wavefront at an wiktionary:interface between two differentmedium so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated....
 or refracted
Refraction

Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its speed. This is most commonly observed when a wave passes from one optical medium to another....
 by a curved surface or object, or the projection
Projection (mathematics)

In mathematics, a projection is any one of several different types of functions, mappings, operations, or transformations, for example, the following:...
 of that envelope of rays on another surface. Caustic can also refer to the curve to which light rays are tangent
Tangent

In geometry, the tangent line to a curve at a given Point is the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point . As it passes through the point of tangency, the tangent line is "going in the same direction" as the curve, and in this sense it is the best straight-line approximation to the curve at that point....
, defining a boundary of an envelope of rays as a curve of concentrated light.






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Kaustik
In optics
Optics

Optics is the study of the behavior and properties of light including its optical phenomena with matter and its imaging by optical instruments....
, a caustic is the envelope of light rays reflected
Reflection (physics)

Reflection is the change in direction of a wavefront at an wiktionary:interface between two differentmedium so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated....
 or refracted
Refraction

Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its speed. This is most commonly observed when a wave passes from one optical medium to another....
 by a curved surface or object, or the projection
Projection (mathematics)

In mathematics, a projection is any one of several different types of functions, mappings, operations, or transformations, for example, the following:...
 of that envelope of rays on another surface. Caustic can also refer to the curve to which light rays are tangent
Tangent

In geometry, the tangent line to a curve at a given Point is the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point . As it passes through the point of tangency, the tangent line is "going in the same direction" as the curve, and in this sense it is the best straight-line approximation to the curve at that point....
, defining a boundary of an envelope of rays as a curve of concentrated light. Therefore in the image to the right, the caustics can be the patches of light or their bright edges. These shapes often have cusp singularities
Cusp (singularity)

In singularity theory a cusp is a Singular point of a curve. Spinode is an alternative name, but this is less commonly used today.For a curve defined as the zero set of a function of two variables , the cusps on the curve will have the following properties:...
.

Caustic00
Such concentration of light, especially sunlight
Sunlight

Sunlight, in the broad sense, is the total spectroscopy of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun. On Earth, sunlight is Filter ed through the Earth's atmosphere, and the solar radiation is obvious as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon....
, can burn. The word caustic, in fact, comes from the Greek ?a?st??, burnt, via the Latin causticus, burning. A common situation where caustics are visible is when light shines on a drinking glass. The glass casts a shadow, but also produces a curved region of bright light. In ideal circumstances (including perfectly parallel rays, as if from a point source at infinity), a nephroid
Nephroid

The nephroid is a plane curve whose name means kidney-shaped Although the term nephroid was used to describe other curves, it was applied to the curve in this article by Proctor in 1878....
-shaped patch of light can be produced. Rippling caustics are commonly formed when light shines through waves on a body of water.

Caustics
In computer graphics, most modern rendering systems support caustics. Some of them even support volumetric caustics. This is accomplished by raytracing the possible paths of the light beam through the glass, accounting for the refraction and reflection. Photon mapping
Photon mapping

In computer graphics, photon mapping is a two-pass global illumination algorithm developed by Henrik Wann Jensen that solves the rendering equation....
 is one implementation of this.



See also

  • Focus (optics)
    Focus (optics)

    In geometrical optics, a focus, also called an image point, is the point where light rays originating from a point on the object converge ....
  • Circle of confusion
    Circle of confusion

    In optics, a circle of confusion is an optical spot caused by a cone of light ray s from a lens not coming to a perfect focus when imaging a point source....
  • Caustic (mathematics)
    Caustic (mathematics)

    In differential geometry a caustic is the envelope of Line #Rays either Reflection or refracted by a manifold. It is related to the optical concept of Caustic ....


Further reading