Computer Scientists Discover How to Simulate Rainbows

Researchers at UC San Diego have spent some time investigating the shapes and colors of rainbows in order to recreate them in simulations.

According to Iman Sadeghi, PhD student at the Jacobs School of Engineering, his advisor, computer science professor Henrik Wann Jensen, and scientists from Spain, England and Switzerland discovered that spherical water drops could not explain the appearance of all rainbows.

Instead, they found that "as a water drop falls, air pressure flattens the bottom of it and shapes it like a burger." Now called "burgeroids" by the research team, the drops allowed them to simulate rainbows much more accurately.

"We are the first to present an accurate simulation of twinned rainbows," Sadeghi said in a statement.

The findings are published in the current issue of CM Transactions on Graphics. The scientists hope that the discovery will help improve the techniques used to simulate rainbows in video games and movies.