Starburst

For realistic modeling of the central flare there are five components:

• Aperture Generation
• Adding Dust and Scratches
• Fourier Transform
• Spectral Integration
• Wavelength to Color Conversion

We will go over these one by one and discuss how we model each step to ultimately achieve the highest level of realism.

Aperture Generation

Looking at real apertures, we observe that they are made up of a number of semicircular blades that move in and out as the aperture opens and closes. In some lenses these blades rotate while moving, whereas in others, they do not.

The aperture is modeled in Starburst as the intersection of a user-specified number of blades rotated by a user-specified amount.