T-buffer: fast visualization of relativistic effects in space-time

  • Authors:
  • Ping-Kang Hsiung;Robert H. Thibadeau;Michael Wu

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-

  • Venue:
  • I3D '90 Proceedings of the 1990 symposium on Interactive 3D graphics
  • Year:
  • 1990

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Abstract

We have developed an innovative ray-tracing simulation algorithm to describe Relativistic Effects in SpaceTime ("REST"). Our algorithm, called REST-frame, models light rays that have assumed infinite speed in conventional ray-tracing to have a finite speed in spacetime, and uses the non-Newtonian Lorentz Transformation to relate measurements of a single event in different inertial coordinate systems (inertial frames). Our earlier work [5][6][7] explored the power of REST-frame as an experimentation tool to study the rich visual properties in natural world modeled by Special Relativity. Non-intuitive images of the anisotropic deformation ("warping") of space, the intensity concentration/spreading of light sources in spacetime, and the relativistic Doppler shift were visualized from our simulations.