FroZenLight - Patterns of Light
All images in this gallery are made with the open source software FroZenLight available at http://frozenlight. altervista.org
The software casts a light ray onto a grid of circular shaped mirrors and calculates all subsequent reflections by the law of geometric optics (the wave like nature of light is omitted). This simple model is very chaotic as errors of the position of the light source quickly blow up and indeed arbitrary precision math is needed to calculate most of reflection patterns.
The images in this gallery show symmetric reflection patterns emerging at special positions of the light source and special rotations of the mirroring lattice. Observe that the ray that leaves the light source (small triangle) enters the light source exactly at the same height on the backside.
The FroZenLight application is highly interactive and comes with a lot of predefined patterns.
FroZenLight - Ornament
The definition file of the ornament pattern consists of two points defining the boundary condition and 15 estimations for the intermidiate points. The algorithm implemented in the FroZenLight application then calculates the exact position of the light source based on this definition file. The basic 17 point sequence is mirrored 8 times until the full ornament becomes visible. 8 points of the pattern lie on a symmetry axis.
FroZenLight - Cross
4 points of the cross pattern lie on a diagonal symmetry axis and 4 lines are exactly horizontal or vertical.
FroZenLight - Four Trees
4 points lie on a diagonal symmetry axis and 4 on a horizontal or vertical symmetry axis. The basic sequence which is mirrored 8 times to yield the whole pattern consists of 23 points. The circle lattice is rotated always in such a way that the beam leaving the light source (small triangle) is exactly horizontal.
FroZenLight - Cubistic Star
The cubistic star pattern is much simpler than the previous one. Only 6 reflection points are needed to define the basic sequence.
FroZenLight - Rock Crystals
The reflection pattern has four points that lie exactly on a symmetry axis and four lines with the exact gradients 1 and -1. The radius cannot be chosen much greater than 40% of the maximum radius (zero gap between circles).
FroZenLight - Patchwork
The height of the light source is given by a 400 digit number. The patchwork pattern has 407 reflection points and 81 loops. The radius has been chosen to 50 % of the maximum possible radius.
