So. I’ve got decent simulations of convex and concave prisms going.
Now I have a different problem.
The puzzles I’ve been doodling for these were based around the assumption that I could have rays that are parallel and wide apart pass through the convex and then concave prism to produce rays that are still parallel but closer together.
As you can see from the screenshot, the rays are no longer parallel and it would be pretty tricky to get them parallel, from what I can tell.
I created a bunch of sliders allowing me to tweak the parameters that define the shape of the curved prisms and the distance between them. But slide as I might, I couldn’t get the desired effect.
So.
A couple things I could try:
- One-sided convex and concave lenses. How had I not considered this? I guess that’s just not what all those science laser kits usually have?
- Aspheric lenses. More complicated to implement and tweak but it’d be pretty cool.
- Lenses that are convex and concave?
For now I’m just using three lasers. If there are only three beams then I can get them to be parallel. It’s only when there are more than three, or if I’m off center that things break down.
