Partial support is requested for the purchase of equipment to fund an interdisciplinary thermal radiation laboratory, to be used to support engineering research in the Program of Computer Graphics and the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The equipment will allow new computer-graphics-based algorithms for the analysis of radiant exchange. These algorithms have the potential for greatly enhancing the speed and accuracy of radiant calculations in complex geometries. The CCD camera will be calibrated as a spectrophotometer to provide fast spectral images of an illuminated environment. Spectral information will be achieved by using broadband filters and computer-based spectral inversion. The measured images will be compared with calculated images. The equipment will allow detailed assessment of calculation methods in geometrically complex environments. The requested spectroradiometer and reflectometers will allow a variety of hemispherical and bidirectional reflectivities to be measured over a wide wavelength range. Such data is required as input for simulation algorithms. It will also be used to assess new wave-optics-based bidirectional reflectance models.
