The authors feel that, having done all the work of intersecting with a surface, the ray should do more when it gets there. Laser rays provide the energy for this work. Instead of antialiasing the image, the ray locally melts the surface colors, blurring them. Likewise, when a laser ray hits a polygonal object, the sharp angles are eroded away to create a smooth surface. If the force of rays is varied, then bumpy surfaces are realized.
Translucency occurs when some rays are strong enough to blow right through the surface.
Likewise, penumbra is accomplished when some rays blast through objects while proceeding to the light source. Thus, the author's patent applies at all possible scales. Since changing the fractional dimension of a fractal creates a new fractal, the author's patent extends to fractals of any roughness. A fractal surface of zero roughness is a smooth surface, so the author's patent subsumes all smooth surface methods in computer graphics. While fractals describe the smooth surfaces of man-made objects, they also describe the irregular, intricate objects of the natural world, and thus fall under the author's patent.