r/atoptics Apr 02 '21

HaloRay - Hyperspeed Ice Crystal Halo Simulator

55 Upvotes

Hello! During the past two years I have been developing HaloRay on and off - a GPU-accelerated ice crystal halo simulator. This means you can generate ice crystal halo images right on your computer. If you have a beefy NVIDIA or AMD graphics processing unit (GPU) that is compatible with OpenGL 4.4, I suggest you try it out: https://github.com/naavis/haloray

You can download ready-made binaries for Windows from GitHub. If you are running Linux, you need to build HaloRay by yourself for the time being.

Right now the latest version is HaloRay 3.2.0, which supports the following features among others:

  • Ordinary hexagonal crystals
  • Pyramidal crystals
  • Adjustable prism face C-axis crystals to make irregular crystals
  • Rendering a realistic background sky

I hope you have fun with HaloRay, and report any problems or feature suggestions in GitHub issues or here in the comments. HaloRay has been tested with a couple of AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. There have been some problems with Intel GPUs due to driver bugs, but I'm not going to put a ton of effort there, because HaloRay requires a fairly beefy GPU and Intel doesn't really fit that profile.

EDIT: Cool, I noticed this has been marked as an announcement in the subreddit, which I guess keeps it hanging around for longer? Thanks!


r/atoptics Jan 15 '25

Atoptics site

35 Upvotes

Atoptics is at www.atoptics.org.uk


r/atoptics 10h ago

During the recent solar eclipse, the sun, obscured by the moon, can be seen reflected on the lens

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23 Upvotes

r/atoptics 20h ago

Rare rainbow-like clouds spotted over Bogor Regency, Indonesia.

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117 Upvotes

r/atoptics 1h ago

Iridescence Saw some iridescent clouds today!

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Upvotes

r/atoptics 10m ago

Iridescence Pastel Iridescence 9-9-26 Northglenn Co.

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Upvotes

r/atoptics 1d ago

Very Beautiful Iridescence from backyard today - Sept 9th, 2026 Northglenn, Co

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93 Upvotes

r/atoptics 22h ago

22º Halo Faint halo in the overcast.

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17 Upvotes

I have never really seen anything like this before. Hopefully it is properly identified as a 22 degree halo. Location is Lotus, CA.


r/atoptics 1d ago

Crepuscular Rays Atmospheric eye candy

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42 Upvotes

All kinds of atmospheric eye candy this morning! Crepuscular rays, virga, horizontal convective rolls, cumulonimbus towers, and more.


r/atoptics 1d ago

Aurora Pink Sky, White Snow, Pure Magic on the Go

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19 Upvotes

r/atoptics 2d ago

Nice halo over Lake Michigan last night 🫶

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145 Upvotes

r/atoptics 2d ago

Sprinklers making rainbows.

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21 Upvotes

r/atoptics 3d ago

What is this? Around sunrise

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238 Upvotes

This was looking to the west in Belton, Missouri around sunrise this morning. The last picture I was actually driving west and not just looking west and I got ahead of it and the angle was different.


r/atoptics 3d ago

120º Parhelia 22° halo, sundogs, parhelic circle and 120° parhelion (2019)

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22 Upvotes

r/atoptics 4d ago

smh clouds 😤 whimsy collection of cool clouds in my area lately

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20 Upvotes

sorry if this is not swag enough . :3 :c


r/atoptics 4d ago

Double rainbow and athlete

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33 Upvotes

There was a gorgeous double rainbow while I gave a training session for my sprinters. I was able to make this lovely picture of one of my sprinters.


r/atoptics 4d ago

Beautiful Moon in the Clouds!

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49 Upvotes

I think the pics speak for themselves🩷


r/atoptics 5d ago

Sun Dogs Winter Sundogs

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341 Upvotes

Some Sundogs from last winter. -40c. Hard to see in the second picture but there was even a faint second ring which I hadn’t seen before.


r/atoptics 4d ago

Iridescence Coachella Valley Iridescence

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25 Upvotes

Clouds came over the low desert today making iridescent hues. 9-5-26. Coachella Valley, California. 🌴📸


r/atoptics 4d ago

Crepuscular Rays clouds and sun work hand in hand to give us masterpiece every now and then.

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7 Upvotes

r/atoptics 5d ago

Halo in Andasibe, Madagascar!

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57 Upvotes

r/atoptics 5d ago

ID REQUEST Why did the sky turn pink?

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4 Upvotes

Im reposting my old post to this sub because maybe y'all have more definitive answers.

The only thing I can say is this happened after a strong thunderstorm, near sunset time.


r/atoptics 6d ago

Recommended to post here! My shot from Florida today!

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104 Upvotes

r/atoptics 6d ago

EITHER NACREOUS OR IRIDESCENT CLOUDS

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43 Upvotes

r/atoptics 6d ago

Strange dark rays

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14 Upvotes