Photon Engineering Releases FRED Version v13.20 |
04/02/2014 |
Photon Engineering, LLC is pleased to announce the release of FRED 13.20. This is a major version release which offers changes to both the underlying framework and many new features designed to make optical system engineering in FRED even more usable, diverse, and efficient.
Document Update
Any time a change is made in a UI dialog and the user presses the OK or Apply button, FRED undergoes a “document update” cycle to ensure that all of the inter-dependencies between elements are properly accounted for and that the model is updated into a valid state. This document update cycle has been completely re-written for this release and will result in much faster model manipulations. In particular, users running large models (e.g. >10,000 surfaces) will notice a substantial increase in model editing capability. The document update cycle also applies to updates made through the scripting language.
Entity Delete
A few fast delete algorithm has been implemented that will result in substantially faster entity deletion and model update times for large models.
Raytrace Raypath Sorting
When the user wants to keep track of all individual raypaths in a model, there is a period of post-processing that takes place at the conclusion of the raytrace in order to sort the raypaths. In systems where there are large numbers of raytrace paths, the post-processing time can be significant. This release of FRED implements a new raypath sorting algorithm that significantly reduces the raypath processing time.
Faceted Surface
The Faceted Surface is a new surface type that is represented by a collection of planar triangle facets created from an input *.obj or *.stl file. There is no requirement that the geometry represented in the Faceted Surface represent a single object. In fact, the Faceted Surface can be used to construct an arbitrary number of individual geometry elements but will be stored in FRED’s object tree as an individual surface node.
CAD Export
The CAD export functionality has largely been re-written to make the feature more reliable and robust. Many more surface types and trimming operations are supported for export and many of the old export algorithms were rewritten to give better numerical stability.
Vector Entry Control (VEC)
A new Vector Entry Control interface is now used throughout FRED in control specifications requiring an x,y,z position triplet or x,y,z direction triplet. Flexible delimiting of the triplet values allows the user to quickly copy and paste entries from a variety of external sources directly into the Vector Entry Control interface in order to help facilitate rapid model development and manipulation. Furthermore, directional triplets can be specified using a variety of angle solves and shorthand notation.
New Harvey-Shack/ABg Scatter Data Fitting
A new Harvey/ABg Scatter Data Fitting utility has been added to the Tools menu. This utility will help the user fit a Harvey-Shack or ABg scatter function to tabulated BSDF data. Additionally, the user has the ability to preview the raw data along with a fitted model before adding the scatter model to the FRED document.
New Extended Harvey-Shack Scatter Model
A new Extended Harvey-Shack scatter model has been added the list of available scatter model types. This scatter model extends the standard Harvey-Shack scatter function by using a 5-term formulation that imparts an angle of incidence dependence on the scatter model.
Scatter models Catalog
Scatter models can now be added to the document from a Custom scatter catalog which contains a variety of models developed from commercial vendor data. The Custom catalog can also be edited manually to include scatter model definitions that the user would like to be available to them by default in their own scatter catalog (as opposed to loading data from a collection of text file definitions).
Extended Scripted Scatter Model
The Extended Scripted (BSDF given by user-script) scatter model allows the user to specify a custom BSDF function by using FRED’s BASIC scripting language. The input and output parameters of the Extended Scripted scatter model extend the capability of the standard Scripted scatter model by allowing the user to additionally define polarization properties of the scattered rays. This scripted scatter model can also be used to define anisotropic BSDF models in which the scatter function exhibits a dependence on the orientation of the scattering surface.
Diffuse Binomial and Polynomial Scatter Models
The Diffuse Binomial and Diffuse Polynomial scatter models have been modified so that the interpretation of their coefficient summation index ranges is consistent with other analysis programs. Additionally, the Binomial/Polynomial BSDF Data Fitting utility has been modified to use the new coefficient algorithm and now has the ability to display chart previews of the raw data along with the fitted model.
Tabulated BSDF Interpolation Options
Two new interpolation options have been added to the Tabulated BSDF scatter model that can help in reducing interpolation noise for some data sets.
Additionally, as always, this release contains new scripting commands and various bug fixes.
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