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povray

area_light in POV-ray only getting 1 spot?


I'm ray-tracing an areal light source in POV-ray and wanted to check what the source looked like. So I put a diffuser plate right next to it (and parallel to it). I only see a single point source of light a the center though, rather than the 5x5 array of point sources I would expect from the settings for area_light below. Why can't I see the other 24 point sources illuminating the disc?

#version 3.7;
#include "colors.inc"    // The include files contain
#include "textures.inc"    // pre-defined scene elements
#include "shapes.inc"
global_settings { assumed_gamma 1.0 }
background { color White }

camera {
  orthographic
  location <0,0,20>
  look_at  <0, 0, 0>
  sky      <0, 0, 1>
  right    <-1, 0, 0>
  angle    50
 }

#declare plate = disc {
  <0,0,0.99>, <0,0,1>,6
  texture { pigment { color White }}
  finish  { diffuse albedo 1. }
  }

#declare my_light = light_source {
    <0,0, 1>     
    color rgb <0.3,0.3,0.3> 
    area_light <5,0, 0>, <0,5,0>, 5, 5
    }

light_group {
  light_source {my_light}
  plate
  global_lights off
} 

enter image description here


Solution

  • I simply added:

    area_illumination on
    

    to the light source definition and the other spots appeared.