3D visualization featured in TracePro 7.1 optical analysis software release

Sept. 10, 2011

Littleton, MA--The release of TracePro 7.1 illumination and optical analysis software from Lambda includes dramatic three-dimensional (3D) visualization capabilities.

Gail Overton

3D visualization graphics are now part of TracePro illumination and optical analysis software with the TracePro 7.1 release.

Littleton, MA--The release of TracePro 7.1 illumination and optical analysis software from Lambda Research Corporation includes dramatic three-dimensional (3D) visualization capabilities as well as new path-sorting, enhanced ray sorting, and a new multi-core thread setting. The 3D visualization feature displays irradiance, illuminance, CIE, and true color plots directly on selected curved and planar surfaces and parts in the system view.

The 3D visualization plots allow users to visually track the propagation of light through any ray-traced system with complete pan, zoom, and rotational capability using standard mouse manipulation. Lambda says the graphics provide new insight and understanding in how energy and color propagates through an optical/illumination system, providing in-depth views to identify unwanted light and uniformity issues.

In addition to 3D visualization, the software release includes a path sorting feature that is perfect for in-depth system analysis. This new feature identifies every non-sequential ray path both quantitatively, using the built-in spreadsheet, and visually, in the system view. This new feature can be used in conjunction with the system view and irradiance/illuminance plots to track down problematic stray light, unwanted energy, and ghost paths in display, lighting, and aerospace applications. A new enhanced ray sorting feature has been added to visually show bulk scatter and diffraction paths as separate ray paths in the system view--especially critical for understanding bulk scatter events in both medical and stray light applications. And finally, a new option has been added to specify the specific number of threads to use on a multi-core computer. This feature sets the number of cores that TracePro can use while leaving other cores free for foreground applications.

Lambda Research Corporation publishes TracePro software for optomechanical modeling, The TracePro Bridge for interoperability with Solidworks, and OSLO software for optical design.

SOURCE: Lambda Research; www.lambdares.com

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.