CHAPTER 3	Defining Properties

Overview

What is a property?

Properties are modifiers to objects and/or surfaces that determine how rays will interact to these objects. Examples of properties include materials, surface finishes, temperature, light source, and transmission characteristics. There are pre-defined properties, but you may also define your own.

Define or Apply Properties

This chapter covers defining custom properties that you can use in your model. Typically, you need to “define” properties before you can “apply” them. However, in order to define properties correctly, you will need measured data for the properties you wish to define. For instance, if you have a special paint that you want to use on a given surface of your solid model, you must have the properties of that paint measured before you define TracePro properties for it.

If you plan on using only the pre-defined properties in the TracePro databases, you should just read the first few sections of this chapter and refer to Chapter 4, “Applying Properties”.

You can come back to this chapter when you need to define custom properties. The remainder of this chapter assumes that you have already read about applying properties in Chapter 4. Properties are defined using Property Editors. Selecting

Define|Edit Property Data|Material Properties, for example, opens a new window for creating and editing material properties. All property editors work in this way.

Property Editors

TracePro property editors share common features described in this section. Each editor is comprised of a Command Panel, Information Panel and Grid Panel.

The Material Property editor is shown in Figure 3.1 with the Command Panel on the left, the Information Panel on the top and the Grid Panel on the bottom. Toolbar buttons are provided to hide editor tabs to expand the tab of interest. For Material Properties, the data tab is split between the Table view for tabular input and the Formula view for interpolation coefficients. The tool bar includes lock/ unlock icons used to enable editing.

The Surface Property editor is shown in Figure 3.2 with several columns collapsed and the data context contextual popup menu displayed. In addition to the other general changes, individual rows of data in the Surface Property editor may use the Solve For function on a row by row basis from the popup menu.

Defining Properties

Toolbar

Information Panel

Command Panel Grid Panel

FIGURE 3.1 - Material Property Editor

Collapsed Columns

Context popup menu

FIGURE 3.2 - Surface Property Editor with a cell popup menu

3.2	TracePro 5.0 User’s Manual

Property Editors

Toolbars and Menus

Each tool bar icon has a corresponding Menu item.

TABLE 3.1. Editor menu and toolbar commands

Menu	Toolbar Description
File|Import Property	Import property data from ASCII file
File|Export Property	Export current property to ASCii file
File|Save	Save current property data
Edit|Lock Property	This icon indicates that the current prop-
	erty is in Edit Mode, selecting the menu
	or pressing on the icon will place the
	property in Locked mode and disable
	further editing
Edit|Unlock Property	This icon indicates that the current prop-
	erty is in Locked Mode, selecting the
	menu or pressing on the icon will place
	the property in Edit mode and permit
	modification of the data
View|All Panels	This selection exposes the three tabs or
	panels in the editor
View|Info & Grid	This selection hides the Command tabs
	to maximize the width of the Information
	and Grid tabs
View|Info Only	This selection maximizes the Informa-
	tion tab
View|Grid Only	This selection maximizes the Grid tab
(no menu)	The Expand icon is displayed when a
	set of rows is collapsed. Double Clicking
	on the icon will restore the rows
(no menu)	The Collapse icon is displayed when the
	row is followed by rows with the same
	data value. Double Clicking on the icon
	will hide the subsequent rows

Command Panel

The Command Panel provides buttons to work with Catalogs, Properties and Data. The Command Panel is located on the left side of the editor in a split window tab. The width of the tab may be set by dragging the splitter bar. Some of the options will vary depending on the type of property being viewed.

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3.3

Defining Properties

TABLE 3.2. Command Panel buttons

Add Catalog This button displays a dialog asking for the name of a new catalog. The new catalog will begin empty and become the current catalog in the editor.

Delete Catalog This button deletes the current catalog from the TracePro database file. A Warning dialog is displayed. Once a catalog is deleted it can not be retrieved. See “Properties Database” on page 2.52.

Add Property This button displays a dialog asking for a property name and other initial property data. The property will be added to the current catalog.

Delete Property This button deletes the current property from the catalog. A Warning dialog is displayed. Once the property is deleted it can not be retrieved.

Copy Property This button prompts for a new catalog and property name. The data is copied causing a new property to be added to the selected catalog.

Sort by... This button displays the Sort Dialog. Properties with two or more dependant variables can be sorted based on a selected order of variables. For example, Material properties with tabular data may be sorted by Temperature then Wavelength or by Wavelength then Temperature.

Add... This button displays the Add Data Dialog. One or more rows of data will be added to the property for the value entered in the dialog.

The Add function automatically creates all the necessary rows to keep each temperature, wavelength, and incident angle consistent (i.e., you need all the data for each sortable index).

Delete... This button displays the Delete Data Dialog. You can select one or more values to delete from the property and the selected rows will be highlighted. Once the data is deleted it can not be retrieved.

Solve For: Surface Properties have an option to solve for one data value based on the the values of the other data items. The Solve For list is only visible in the Surface Property Editor and works over the entire dataset. To solve for an individual row, select the value to solve and use the popup menu. See “Using Solve for” on page 3.26.

Plot Options Surface Properties have an Plot view in the Grid Panel. The Plot Options are used to control the data displayed in the plot. See “Surface Property Plot Tab ” on page 3.29.

Information Panel

The Information Panel is located in the top, right tab of the editor. This panel displays the Catalog and Name of the property, a description and other general property data. Some pre-defined properties are read only, and thus cannot be changed by the user. These properties are maintained by Lambda Research. If you wish to have a locate version you can use the Copy Property function.

Grid Panel

The Grid Panel, or Data Panel, is located in the lower, right tab of the editor. This panel displays tabular data and coefficients. In some cases the data is divided into two or mare tabbed tabs as shown in Figure 3.1 on page 3.2. The Grid contains spreadsheet tables with context sensitive popup menus for most of the data cells. Rows and columns may be collapsed to hide some data, exposing other cells. Clicking on a column heading will collapse or un-collapse that column. Rows may also be sorted to view the data in different ways to made editing more convenient. Row sorting is accomplished by pressing the Sort by... button in the Command Panel area or by right clicking on the tabular data in the grid and selecting Sort by.

3.4	TracePro 5.0 User’s Manual