Calendar

Introduction to Illumination Design Using LightTools
April 19-22
Pasadena, California
Click here for more details and to enroll

COM Macro Programming in LightTools
April 23
Pasadena, California
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For a complete list of LightTools events worldwide: visit our website

Overview of LightTools 7.0

The latest LightTools update, version 7.0, was released earlier this month.  This major update to LightTools includes several enhancements:

• Any Object a Source: Previous versions of LightTools required sources to be modeled using native LightTools geometry.  In version 7.0, you can create a source from any geometric object, including imported geometry.
  
  
  

• Backward Ray Tracing: LightTools now supports backward ray tracing for mesh analyses, including capabilities for illuminance, intensity, and spatial and angular illuminance. 
  

• Luminance Meter Enhancements: LightTools 7.0 includes enhancements to the luminance meter for both forward and backward ray tracing. 

• Mesh Smoothing with Noise Reduction: LightTools now provides an option for Mesh Smoothing with Noise Reduction for both color and non-color meshes.  This allows users to obtain more accurate results with fewer rays.

• User-Interface Enhancements: Several usability enhancements have been made, including:
  
  
• Improved toolbar and command button graphics. 
• The System and Object navigation trees include new symbols to denote whether an object is ray traceable.  The ability to edit all descendants in the navigation trees has also been expanded to include receivers, sources, and forward simulation data. 
• Several enhancements have been made to the 2-D and 3-D Design View menus.
• The ability to copy and paste geometry between models is now supported.

• Color Rendering Index Support: LightTools 7.0 supports the export of Color Rendering Index (CRI) values. 
  
  

• White Point Support in RGB Analysis: RGB analysis now supports a white point definition based on CCT or CIE chromaticity coordinates. 

• Enhanced Ray Report: LightTools’ Ray Report now provides extensive additional information including energy loss on a surface-by-surface basis. 

• Enhanced Utilities: The Utility Library window includes several usability enhancements.  In addition, many of the LightTools utilities themselves have been improved, including:

• The Solar Tracking Utility has been expanded to include integrated sample yearly data, support of single and double axis tracking, and monthly and yearly energy calculations.  The user-interface for this utility has also been enhanced for improved ease of use.  Two new training videos on the Solar Tracking Utility have been added to ORA’s Customer Support Web Site, www.oraservice.com, under LightTools Support > Training & Demo Videos.
• Several enhancements have been made to the Fresnel Lens utility, including the ability to optimize Fresnel lens parameters. 
• A new Digitizer utility has been added to allow you to convert plot data, such as spectral, apodization, or coating data, for import to LightTools as a text file. 

Additions to the Customer Support Web Site

The follow additions have been recently made to ORA’s Customer Support Web Site, www.oraservice.com, under LightTools Support:

• 85 materials were added to the BSDF Scatter Data Library
• 10 video overview for LightTools 7.0 enhancements, as described above, have been added under New Feature Videos
• LightTools 7.0 Release Notes, which provide complete details on the enhancements included version 7.0, have been added under Release Notes