Rayfront User Manual

Luminous Material Types

Light is the material for self-luminous surfaces. Luminous material can be applied to the geometry elements sources, spheres, discs (rings with zero inner radius), cylinders (provided they are long enough) and polygons. Polygons. work best when they are rectangular. Cones can't be used als luminous surfaces.

A pattern can be used to specify the light distribution. Note that the luminaires imported from IES, Eulumdat or CIBSE TM14 data files use this mechanism internally. If you have distribution data to your light source, then you should use this import function instead of trying to reach the same effect with one of the light materials and a pattern yourself.

There are four different luminous material types. You can switch between those and edit their specific settings within the same dialog.

Common Settings

Color:
Edit the color of the light source. This value only affects the balance of the red, green and blue component, while the intensity of the light will be determined by the following Radiance value. If you don't want a colored source, then it is best to leave the color at 1.0/1.0/1.0 to avoid confusion.

Radiance:
This sets the radiance of the light source in Watts per Steradian and Square Meter.

Type Settings
The radio buttons at left select the subtype to use for this specific light material. You can chose from Light, Illum, Glow or Spot.

Light

The basic light subtype doesn't use any special parameters.

Illum

Illum is used for secondary light sources with broad distributions.

Viewed Material:
If viewed directly, then the surface will take the material selected from the drop down menu. If you select "void", then the surface will be invisible.

Glow

Glow is for light sources that are limited in their effect.

Maximum Radius:
For points located at a distance greater than this amount, the light source behaves as if it wouldn't emit any direct light.

Spotlight

A spotlight is limited in its directional output.

Opening Angle:
The light source will only emit light within a cone of this angle opening.

Direction Vector:
This vector defines central axis of the light output. The length of the vector is the distance of the effective focus behind the source center (i.e. the focal length).

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