Task-specific Visualisation of Automotive Headlight Beam Patterns

Bachelor Thesis of Ansgar Mährlein 

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to develop several useful visualisation methods for three-dimensional beam-patterns of a headlight, that aid the development of headlights and to find realistic tasks, for which these visualisations could be of use. One such visualisation is to create and display a three-dimensional mesh of an isolux-surface of the light cone in real-time. Another one shall utilize a set of planes as cross sections of the light cone, which can display an isolux-range on the otherwise transparent geometry, thus creating something similar to a simplified wire-frame of the light cone. A third visualisation will be added, which employs volumetric lighting to realistically simulate the scattering of light in moist or foggy air. The result will be a set of visualisations that can assist specific analysis tasks in headlight development and to increase the realism of a real-time driving simulation.