Raytrace - Ray Manipulation Utilities

Navigation: Raytrace Commands > Ray Manipulation Utilities

Ray Manipulation Utilities

Page Contents

Description

The ray manipulation utilities interface allows a variety of operations to be performed on rays in the active ray buffer. The operations can be targeted to specific sets of rays by use of a ray selection filter. Operations that can be performed on rays include:

•Writing ray data from the ray buffer to file

•Reading data from rayfiles directly into the ray buffer

•Manipulating the active state of rays

•Deleting rays

•Redrawing ray histories

•Reporting ray data

•Compressing the ray buffer to contain only rays of interest (and release memory)

•Moving rays to a point, sphere, or by some distance along its current trajectory

Navigation

This feature can be accessed in the following ways:

•Menu > Raytrace > Ray Manipulation Utilities

Controls

Control	Inputs / Description	Defaults
Direct Actions
Direct Actions	These actions are applied to the rays that exist in the ray buffer. Only rays satisfying the ray selection filter defined in the "Specify which rays to act on" portion of this dialog are operated on. Activate rays Rays satisfying the ray selection filter have their "active" flag set to True. All other rays have their "active" flag set to False. Analyses functions (Irradiance, ray summary, etc.) only operate on rays whose "active" flag is set to True. Deactivate rays Rays satisfying the ray selection filter criteria will have their "active" flag set to False. Analyses functions (Irradiance, ray summary, etc.) only operate on rays whose "active" flag is set to True. Redraw ray history Assuming that an Advanced Raytrace was performed with Ray History requested, this option will redraw the ray history for any ray satisfying the ray selection filter criteria. Reverse ray directions Rays satisfying the ray selection filter criteria will have their ray direction vectors reversed. Print to text window Prints the basic ray data (Position, Direction, Incoherent Power, Path Length and Entity) for each ray satisfying the ray selection criteria. Delete rays Deletes the ray data for all rays satisfying the ray selection filter criteria. Note that the memory associated with these rays is not released and that the ray IDs of the rays remaining in the buffer are unchanged. Compress ray buffer Compresses the ray buffer so that only the rays satisfying the ray selection filter remain. All other rays are deleted and their memory is released. Compression of the ray buffer can result in a change to the ray IDs of the remaining rays.	Activate rays
Read/Write File Actions
Basic Ray Data in compact, binary (FCR) format	Read/Write ray position, direction, power and (optionally) wavelength in binary format. Ray data is written in single float precision.	Not selected, Include Ray Wavelengths toggled.
Basic Ray Data in text format	Read/Write ray position, direction, power and optical path length in an ASCII text file. Ray data is written in double float precision.	Not selected
Comprehensive Ray Data in binary (FBRS) format	Read/Write comprehensive ray data in binary format. This is a complete serialization of the ray buffer that contains every attribute of each ray.	Not selected
Ray History Data	Write history data to file.	Not selected
Propagation Actions
Propagate rays by	Moves ray along its trajectory. Options are: •Distance along ray •Distance along X •Distance along Y •Distance along Z	Distance along ray
Propagate to	Moves ray along its trajectory. Options are: •Optical Path length value •X coordinate •Y coordinate •Z coordinate	Optical Path length value
Propagate to point	Specify (X,Y,Z) point of closest approach.	0,0,0
Propagate to sphere	Specify sphere origin.	0,0,0
Of radius	Radius of sphere. Specify also (closest/farthest) (forward/backward) intersection distance to sphere.	1
Coordinate system	Specify coordinate system of propagation data.	Global Coordinate System
Specify Which Rays to Act On
Table	Specifies which rays are to be modified.	All rays

OK	Accept settings and close dialog box.
Cancel	Discard settings and close dialog box.
Apply	Apply settings and keep dialog box open.
Help	Access this Help page.