Creating a Solid Model

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FIGURE 2.34 - Lens showing rays and importance target.

Customize and Preferences

You can customize the operation of TracePro and change default settings using the View|Preferences and View|Customize menu selections. Each of these selections opens a dialog box for changing the settings. See also “User Defaults” on page 1.9 about saving the default values used in dialogs.

Preferences

To set preferences, select View|Preferences and choose the appropriate tab.

General

TracePro lets you choose the linear units you prefer to use with the model geometry. Available units are millimeters, centimeters, meters, and inches. Select View|Preferences and choose the General tab of the Preferences dialog box. Select your preferred units via the drop-down list and press the Apply button. The model dimensions are translated into the selected units. The selection applies to the current model. The program default is that new models are created in millimeters. See “Model Units” on page 2.1.

Changing the Model View

FIGURE 2.35 - View|Preferences, general tab Dialog

Getting a Model into the Proper Units

When importing geometry from outside of TracePro it is important to verify that the model geometry is in the proper linear units before subsequent optical analysis is performed. Most computer programs allow you to specify these units and the data transfer into TracePro will be correct. Where this is not the case, TracePro can easily make these adjustments so you may proceed with your analysis.

Here is a recommended sequence of steps to accomplish this in TracePro:

1.After importing the model, determine which units you are currently viewing the model in. This information is available in the status bar at the bottom of the TracePro window whenever the mouse cursor is in the model view.

2.If you wish to work in units other than the ones shown, select View|Preferences and choose the Model Units tab of the Preferences dialog. From the drop-down list box select the linear units you desire and press the Apply button. (Verify that you are now viewing the model in these newly selected units.)

3.Now look at the magnitude of the numbers. Are they correct? Are they too large or too small? A scale factor needs to be determined to properly scale the entire model. (i.e. all the objects)

4.Hint: Most computer programs use millimeters, centimeters, inches, or meters to specify their geometry, so the desired scale factor is usually 10, 100, 1000, 2.54, 25.4, or the reciprocals of these numbers, as these scale factors represent the scaling between these units of measure.

5.Now select all the objects in the model (See “Selecting Objects, Surfaces and Edges” on page 1.10.) and select the Edit|Object|Scale menu item. Enter the scale factor in the Scale Selection dialog box and press the Apply button.

6.Verify your work and save the file. You are now ready to proceed with your analysis.

Creating a Solid Model

Default Temperature Standard Expert

The Default Temperature for the current model can be specified in this dialog. This temperature is effectively applied to all objects and surfaces in the model that do not specifically have a temperature applied (Define|Apply Properties|Temperature). For more information on the application of Temperature Properties, See “Temperature” on page 4.37.

Save Text File Format

You can save text files in one of two formats: Unicode or ANSI. The latter was the default till this update in TracePro 4.1. Unicode format is for those that need access to the wide character set that introduces characters from other languages, such as Chinese and Japanese. Note that if you use only the standard ASCII character set, then the ANSI format will likely be preferred by you. Additionally, the Unicode format will require around twice the data storage for text data.

Zoom

The Zoom tab lets you control the zooming functions. The Zoom in by: and Zoom out by: entries control the zooming factors for the View|Zoom In and View|Zoom Out, and the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons. The Wheel zoom factor is used to control the zooming when using a Wheel Mouse.

Checking the Single use zoom window check box causes the Zoom Window mode to be turned off after one use of Zoom Window. The Zoom Window button also becomes unpressed. In order to do another Zoom Window, you must select Zoom Window again.

View Options

The View Options tab lets you set various options associated with the Model Window and analysis.

The Prompt before entering Simulation Raytrace box, checked by default, can be unchecked to allow you to run repeated raytraces in a scheme macro without any user interaction.

The Update raytrace progress option provides control over the ray increment used to update the ray number displayed in the Ray Progress dialog. Increasing the number can increase the raytrace.

The Open System tree option is used to automatically display the system tree when a Model Window is opened. The value entered is a percent (0 - 100) of the Model Window size.

Display Importance Target object/surface label controls the labels when Importance Target display is on. See “Display Importance” on page 2.47. The labels can be turned off if the clutter the view. When the labels are displayed the font size can be changed to improve the visibility of the labels.

Ray Display

Set default for menu: Analysis|Display Rays sets the default condition for the

Analysis|Display Rays menu item in any new models that are created. After a raytrace with a large number of rays, this may take several minutes and consume too much memory, so this feature allows you to disable automatic drawing of rays. The control of whether rays are displayed for the current model is still controlled from the Analysis|Display Rays menu item directly.

Changing the Model View

The Display ray direction arrows checkbox controls whether small arrows are attached to each ray segment indicating the direction of propagation. The option is global to all active Model Windows. Checking Display ray direction arrows enables the option, as shown below.

The Display non-intersecting rays option is the default case in TracePro and is the mode for older releases. By turning off this option, TracePro will ignore rays that do not have a surface intersection. Rays which leave a surface source, start from a ray grid or file source are considered non-intersecting if they leave the model space without hitting any surfaces.

If the Enable start ray drawing limit option is checked, you can enter a number of starting rays to draw and TracePro will only draw segments for the rays with start ray numbers less than the number entered. If Ray Sorting is used, only rays in the Sorted set with start ray numbers less than the number entered will be drawn.

Start ray numbers are displayed in the Incident Ray and Ray History tables.

FIGURE 2.36 - Preferences dialog window with the Ray Display tab chosen.

When Enable ray drawing time limit is enabled, the rays in the Model Window will only be drawn for the number of seconds specified. If the drawing does not complete within that time, an optional prompt dialog will be displayed indicating that the additional rays were not displayed. The prompt dialog is controlled by the

Prompt when ray drawing is incomplete check box as shown in Figure 2.36. Note that after the Ray drawing time limit has been changed in the View|Preferences dialog, the rays in the Model Window will not automatically redraw. In order to keep TracePro from starting a possibly time consuming procedure, Analysis|Ray Sorting must be updated or the Model Window must be resized in order to trigger the redrawing of rays in the Model Window.

Customize

The behavior of TracePro at startup is controlled from the Customize TracePro dialog box, accessed by selecting View|Customize.

Creating a Solid Model

FIGURE 2.37 - Customize Dialog

Properties Database

This entry sets the location of the properties database file. You can set this by either typing in a new path and filename, or using the Browse feature to locate the database file. Properties are stored in a file that is initially installed with the name “TracePro.mdb”. You can copy the default database and build different data files with different sets of property data.

Data Directory

When you start TracePro, Windows sets the current directory or folder according to the settings in the Application Property dialog box. When you install TracePro, this is set to the TracePro installation directory, where the TracePro.exe file resides. When you select File|Open to open a TracePro model, this is the directory that appears. You can select a different directory either by changing the Application Properties using Windows – this is not always easy to find – or by changing the path in Data Directory. You can set this by either typing in a new path and filename, or using the Browse feature to locate the directory. If you leave this entry blank, TracePro uses the Windows default directory as the data directory.

Auto load scheme Standard Expert

With the auto load macro you can load a file to set the options and functions you wish without calling Macro|Execute. See “Macro Programs” on page 8.10.

Changing the Model View

Placement of System Tree

This item sets the location of the splitter window for the System Tree. It can be located either on the right or left side of each model window.

On Starting TracePro

The opening of model windows upon starting TracePro can be set to any of four options:

•Open empty model window

•Open most recently edited model

•Prompt to open most recently edited model

•Don’t open any model window

On opening models

When opening models, you can set TracePro to display all objects, or display only objects that are set as visible (i.e. not hidden)

Graphics Display Driver

This options control the drawing system used for the TracePro Model Window. The default is to use OpenGL. If the Model Window is not working properly, you can set TracePro to use Window internal graphics (GDI) which is slower or adjust the display acceleration under the Windows Control Panel. Check with Lambda Support for help if you see any problems.

Spaceball Support

Support for Spaceball input devices was added. Do not enable the Spaceball mode without the proper device drivers.

Background colors

These items select the background colors for the Model Window, System Tree and Dialog Evaluators. Click in the color to display the Color Palette to change the selection. See “Expression Evaluator” on page 1.14.

The Model Window can have two colors defining a color gradient from the top of the window to the bottom of the window. If both colors are the same, no color gradient is used.

Object/Surface colors

These items select the colors used when an object is created in TracePro and when an object or surface is Highlighted after it is selected. Click in the color to display the Color Palette to change the selection.