Collimating a light source

[johnAMKDR]

I'm very new to CAD in general and espeically Fusion 360. 

I have light source that emits a cone-shaped beam and I'd like to see where the light hits other things in an assembly. I've been able to join a cone to the body of the source and that is useful. But, I'd like to interpose a surface with a hole to block the outer portion of the cone and see that effect.

I've seen this done in SolidWorks, but I'm not sure how. 

I thought I might find a flashlight example in the galleries but I haven't seen any with a beam.

Is it possible to have a light source inside a component and let the renderer take care of it?

Thanks for any suggestions,

John

[TrippyLighting]

Yes, you'll just have to model the light source accurately and apply an emissive material.

[johnAMKDR]

That's encouraging. I've jumped around in the tutorials and have been able to alter the position of the light relative to the center of the scene, but haven't seen how to place the source inside a component or body?

Can you suggest where I can learn this?

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

Are you sure you've gone through all the tutorials in the Support and Learning section ?

A light source is a physical emitter modeled as a body, or surface in Fusion 360. That emitting surface/body is going to be part of a luminaire, which also has to be modeled.

What kind of light source do you intend on simulating ? 

[johnAMKDR]

I've probably only seen 0.1% of the tutorials out there and only taken about a tenth of those. With some of the additional keywords you mentioned, I found enough info to get going.

I'm simulating an X-ray tube; the materials around the emitter can be considered opaque; I've set the reflectance to 0 which helps make the edges of the shadows sharper. I may raise the value to get some idea of the effect of scatter. 

I've seen some indications that in other Autodesk products, you can introduce fog, which might let me "see" the beam. Is this possible in Fusion 360?

Thanks

[TrippyLighting]

That “fog” in technical computer graphics terms is called “participating media” such as athmospheric scatter. I don’t think this is possible with Fuiosn 360.

other terms are Mie Scatter and Rayleigh Scatter.