Snell's Artifacts

Snell's artifacts are imaginary geometric objects created using Snell's and Descartes' laws of optics that define the behavior of a ray of light passing from one transparent medium to another.

By applying these laws to extreme parameters, beyond what the real world is capable of producing and with a high level of variability, we open the door to a new world.

In order to keep some control over this extreme and crazy world, the grid within which the rays evolve is divided into several squares. Each of these squares limits the grid settings at that location.

In order to be able to generate a Snell Artifact, 1 to 6 million rays are created. It may take a while. So be patient while these radii are calculated.

Keyboard commands:
[S]: Saves a PNG image of 4000x4000 pixels without glow filter
[SHIFT + S]: Saves a 4000x4000 pixel PNG image and applies a glow filter (may take a long time depending on your system)

URL parameters:
Add the parameter size=N to generate an image of NxN pixels (glow effect will be disabled by default)
Add the parameter glow=true to apply a glow effect to the image

Artist: Estienne
July 2022