Publication

Architectural Caustics — Controlling Light with Geometry

Mark Pauly
2012
Conference Papers

Abstract

Caustics are captivating light patterns created by materials bundling or diverting light by refraction or reflection. We know caustics as random side effects, appearing, for example, at the bottom of a swimming pool. In this paper we show that it is possible to control caustic patterns to form almost any desired shape by optimizing the geometry of the reflective or refractive surface generating the caustic. We demonstrate how this surprising result offers a new perspective on light control and the use of caustics as an inspiring architectural design element. Several produced prototypes illustrate that physical realizations of such optimized geometry are feasible.

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/63669694-7e33-46d1-9838-0be13c456519

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Mark Pauly
2012
Conference Papers

Abstract

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/63669694-7e33-46d1-9838-0be13c456519

About this result

Related concepts (6)

Caustic (optics)

In optics, a caustic or caustic network is the envelope of light rays which have been reflected or refracted by a curved surface or object, or the projection of that envelope of rays on another surface. The caustic is a curve or surface to which each of the light rays is tangent, defining a boundary of an envelope of rays as a curve of concentrated light. Therefore, in the photo to the right, caustics can be seen as patches of light or their bright edges. These shapes often have cusp singularities.

Caustic (mathematics)

In differential geometry, a caustic is the envelope of rays either reflected or refracted by a manifold. It is related to the concept of caustics in geometric optics. The ray's source may be a point (called the radiant) or parallel rays from a point at infinity, in which case a direction vector of the rays must be specified. More generally, especially as applied to symplectic geometry and singularity theory, a caustic is the critical value set of a Lagrangian mapping (π ○ i) : L ↪ M ↠ B; where i : L ↪ M is a Lagrangian immersion of a Lagrangian submanifold L into a symplectic manifold M, and π : M ↠ B is a Lagrangian fibration of the symplectic manifold M.

Swimming pool

A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable swimming or other leisure activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built above ground (as a freestanding construction or as part of a building or other larger structure), and may be found as a feature aboard ocean-liners and cruise ships.

Related publications (3)

High-contrast Computational Caustic Design

Romain Pierre Testuz, Yuliy Gennadievich Schwartzburg, Mark Pauly, Andrea Tagliasacchi

We present a new algorithm for computational caustic design. Our algorithm solves for the shape of a transparent object such that the refracted light paints a desired caustic image on a receiver screen. We introduce an optimal transport formulation to esta ...

ACM2014

Controlling caustics

Mark Pauly

Caustics are captivating light patterns created by materials focusing or diverting light by refraction or reflection. We know caustics as random side effects, appearing, for example, at the bottom of a swimming pool, or generated by many glass objects, lik ...

2013

Caustic Art

Mark Pauly

The computation of caustics created by reflection or refraction of light is a well-studied problem in computer graphics. This paper investigates the inverse problem: Given a greyscale intensity image, find the shape of a surface that will cast a caustic th ...

2012