Introduction

So far, research was focused on the geometrical appearance of fast moving objects. However, we demonstrate that a photo-realistic image of a rapidly moving object is dominated by the searchlight and Doppler effects. The Doppler effect causes a shift in wavelength of the incoming light, which results in a change of color. The searchlight effect increases the apparent brightness of the objects ahead when the observer is approaching these objects at high velocity.

Pictures and Movies

The following movies illustrate the relativistic effects for a scene which is illuminated by Planck radiation. Here, the objects are colorless Lambertian (perfectly diffuse) reflectors. The scene is illuminated by Planck radiation with a temperature of 2,800 Kelvin.

This video visualizes the apparent geometry only. The observer is moving with 90 percent of the speed of light (Mpeg, 3.2 Mb)

This video visualizes the apparent geometry and the Doppler effect, showing a noticeable blue shift. The observer is moving with 90 percent of the speed of light (Mpeg, 3.2 Mb)

This video shows completely relativistic rendering of geometry and illumination. The overall illumination is reduced to one thousandth compared to that in other two movies. Due to the transformation of radiance the objects ahead are extremely bright. The observer is moving with 90 percent of the speed of light (Mpeg, 2.5 Mb)

References

[1] D. Weiskopf, U. Kraus, H. Ruder: Searchlight and Doppler Effects in the Visualization of Special Relativity: A Corrected Derivation of the Transformation of Radiance, ACM Transactions of Graphics, Vol. 18, No. 3, July 1999, 278-292.

[2] D. Weiskopf, U. Kraus, H. Ruder: Illumination and Acceleration in the Visualization of Special Relativity: A Comment on Fast Rendering of Relativistic Objects, Journal of Visualisation and Computer Animation, 2000, Vol. 11, 185-195.