And here we can finally see the whole beam-tracing in operation in a more complex geometry. It
has an option to include any of the beam-tracing levels into the simulation. Please, note that the actual
result, i.e., the resulting valid specular reflection paths, should
remain the same for the image-source method and all the versions of
beam-tracing as the beam-tracing can be seen as an computational
optimization of the image-source method that doesn't sacrifice
anything in the accuracy.
The efficiency of the techniques presented above depends highly on the
actual geometry that is to be simulated. For example, in the figure
below it is possible to notice that the 'Full beam-clipping' provides
only modest gain in the 'Concert hall' scenario whereas in the 'Maze'
it is essential and the only way to reach the maximum available
reflection order. This is since the 'Maze' has plenty of occlusions
caused by surfaces hiding each other such that in any given location
only a small fraction of surfaces is visible.
- Switch between different versions of beam-tracing and image-source technique, and see the numbers of image sources as well as the number of valid paths in each case.
- Similarly, you can investigate the changes in the resulting image-source tree.
- By selecting 'Branch of the image source tree' visualization you can see a single branch of the tree and the associated ray path. Move the listener around in this mode and see when the path becomes valid or invalid. You can move forward and backward in the tree with the '<' and '>' buttons.
- The 'Single beam' visualization shows one beam and highlights the surfaces that are inside the beam.
© 2016 Lauri Savioja