Raytrace Options

FIGURE 5.21 - Raytrace Thresholds Tab

The raytrace can also be controlled by limiting the number of intercepts. The number of intercepts is the number of ray-surface intersections that a particular ray path contains. You can terminate rays based on the following criteria:

•Total number of ray-surface intercepts for a ray path

•Total number of scattered components for a ray path

•Number of randomly scattered components for a ray path

•Number of components scattered by optical surfaces for a ray path. Optical surfaces are defined by a prescription property

For each starting ray, these limits control the number of intercepts allowed along each path. The Total Intercepts limit directly controls the depth of the ray tree by controlling the number of nodes or branch points, while the other limits and thresholds indirectly control it.

Simulation and Output Standard Expert

The Simulation and Output tab of the Raytrace Options dialog box lets you control what data is saved during a simulation raytrace, and what results can be viewed after the raytrace is finished. To save ray data for an exit surface so that an irradiance map can be generated, check the Collect Exit Surface Data box. Checking the Collect Candela Data check box will save the rays that escape the model and “go off to infinity”. These rays are used for candela plots.

TracePro 5.0 User’s Manual

5.39

Ray Tracing

FIGURE 5.22 - Simulation and Output Tab

Collect Exit Surface Data

Data is collected for the Exit Surface defined by the Exit Surface Property. After the raytrace is complete, irradiance maps and ray tables can be displayed for the Exit Surface.

Collect Candela Data

Data is collected for rays that escape the model and “go off to infinity”. After the raytrace is complete Candela Plots can be displayed.

Index file name

The Index file name option is used to collect the simulation data files generated during a raytrace. This is used in conjugation with the “Save Data to Disk” option below.

One index file, with the NDX extension, can accumulate several simulation files, with SIM extensions, for several raytraces. When the simulation raytrace is started an options to specify a note for the raytrace is presented. The note is stored in the index file with links to the SIM data files. The SIM files are stored with the following name convention.

1.Candela Data - BaseName_num_can.sim

2.Exit Surface Data - BaseName_num_exXX.sim

Where BaseName corresponds to the Index file name, num is the raytrace number starting from 1 and XX is the Exit Surface number starting from 1. See “Simulation Mode” on page 5.49

5.40	TracePro 5.0 User’s Manual