Retro Reflective Pigment

[earthwyrms]

i saw something on ebay about micron sized glass beads used for reflectivity, like a cats eye, reflefts the light back towards the source.

searching online for more information turned up this page
http://www.nightfirepatches.com/
which has some pictures to show what happens with headlights bouncing back towards the drivers eyes, to see workers or pedestrians at night at greater distances than other reflective materials.


it may seem counter productive to bounce light back to a lamp from a wall, but i am guessing i am just not getting it or thinking of something about why it may be great for reflecting light.

i am guessing it is great for the ceiling, sending light back to a wall/mirror and to a plant maybe.

i was originally thinking about tile/craft mirrors and saw the retro reflective pigment.

"Retro-Reflective Pigment, 180-250 Micron High-Power Glass Bead Reflectors

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[earthwyrms]

"These are the latest and greatest in glass bead reflective pigment, and are highly retroreflective, meaning unlike a regular mirror or shiny surface, it reflects light back where it came from, instead of the negative of the angle of incidence. In fewer words, no matter what angle the pigment or the light source is, it will appear bright and visible!

This technology mimics the reflective traits of animals' eyes, being that a perfect sphere with lightly reflective surface will bounce light back the same way it came. If you've ever seen animal eyes in headlights (or red eyes in flash photography), that is exactly how this works, but with thousands of tiny, super-accurate glass spheres.

These beads range in size from 180-250 micron, and are extremely high quality, being virgin glass with no air inclusion, and 98% spherical, for the best possible reflective traits."