EPFL:
Thomas Kiser, Mark Pauly, Yuliy Schwartzburg, Romain Testuz
External:
Philippe Bompas, Michael Eigensatz, Raimund Krenmueller, Minh Man Nguyen, Florian Rist
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RTS.ch - nouvo - French:
Ils ont apprivoisé la lumière -
EPFL news - English:
Choreographing light -
antena3.com - El Hormiguero - Spanish:
Cuadro de cristal -
euronews.com - hi-tech - German:
Blick in den Zauberspiegel -
Audio Cultura RSI - Italian (start at 5:22):
Creatività e tecnologia
For more information, please contact lgg-info@epfl.ch
Caustics
Abstract
Caustics are captivating light patterns created by materials bundling or diverting light by refraction or reflection. We know caustics as random side effects, appearing, for example, at the bottom of a swimming pool. In this work we show that it is possible to control caustic patterns to form almost any desired shape by optimizing the geometry of the reflective or refractive surface generating the caustic. We demonstrate how this surprising result offers a new perspective on light control and the use of caustics as an inspiring design element. Several produced prototypes illustrate that physical realizations of such optimized geometry are feasible.
Prototypes
Head Brain
High contrast, freeform boundary
Einstein
High contrast, singularity lines
Turing
Large prototype
Small Turing
Fabrication experiments
Great Wave
Reflective prototype
Olympic Rings
High contrast color caustics
Presentations and Events
Art installation: sol.id
Rolex Learning Center, EPFL - 2015
Caustic exhibition - Nuit des Musées
Rolex Learning Center, EPFL - 2013
PechaKucha Night
Rolex Learning Center, EPFL - 2013
Glass Performance Days
Finland - 2013
Symposium on Advances in Architectural Geometry
Centre Pompidou, Paris - 2012
Publications
High-contrast Computational Caustic Design
ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH 2014)
Architectural Caustics - Controlling Light with Geometry
Advances in Architectural Geometry 2012
