A Robust Design and Analysis Tool

LightTools' unique power lies in its complementary strengths of design and analysis. The analysis gives you the status of how well your design is working against spec. The design features help you quickly and efficiently improve the design, in both the initial concept phase and during engineering iterations and refinements. This coupling of benefits (design and analysis) makes LightTools really pay off in terms of productivity improvement, faster time to market, and better engineered products.

Build and Modify
While analysis requires only the initial creation or importing of geometry, practical design requires quick and simple geometry modifications. You can perform easy design modifications because LightTools' implementation of Boolean operations and trimming operations retains the parametric information about how the geometry was created. Surface and material properties are also maintained as you edit the model, allowing quick analysis of multiple design forms.

LightTools' basic 3D solid primitives, sphere, ellipse, toroid, block, cylinder (including cone), extrusion and rotationally swept polyline, can be parametrically edited and inserted with any size, in any location, and at any angle. Complex objects previously defined using Boolean operations can be edited at any time (even after the object is complete). Each solid can be combined with any other solid (native or imported) using the Boolean operations, union, intersection, and subtraction. This allows the creation of complex, as-fabricated, models, such as segmented reflectors and multifaceted lightpipes. Note that the complex elements can be optical, mechanical, or structural components. And of course, LightTools can also import and export CAD data in several standard and product-specific formats.

Create Complex 3D Objects Quickly and Easily
LightTools' "skinned solids" feature allows you to build extremely complex 3D objects simply by specifying their transverse cross sections, available in various shapes, at two or more points. The software then automatically constructs the longitudinal structure between these shapes. Furthermore, you can specify the longitudinal surface profile to be straight lines, cubic splines, or even Bezier curves. The precise shape of the skinned solids can then be adjusted automatically using the LightTools optimizer.

Point-and-Shoot Ray Tracing
Your understanding of the optical behavior of a complex illumination system is greatly enhanced because you can graphically start and aim rays from any point in your model, even from inside parts. Rays are displayed visually and automatically update as the model is changed, and rays can be moved or rotated interactively to probe the behavior of a model.

Point and Shoot ray tracing for real time feedback of design iterations

Application Programmer's Interface
Design studies often require repetition of operations to modify geometry and analyze the results of a simulation. LightTools facilitates automation of these tasks with a COM interface to LightTools commands and data access. This interface can be applied to extending LightTools capabilities using Excel VBA, Visual Basic, MATLAB, Mathematica®, or other COM-enabled clients. A supplied library of over 150 high-level functions allows rapid development of solutions. 

Optical Properties
The optical properties of surfaces and materials can be set to model a wide variety of physical behaviors. Colored and translucent plastics and glasses can be simulated. Glossy and matte surface finishes can be used, as well as more general optical coatings and filters. Backlights and lightpipes with appliqués, dot patterns or fine groove or bump structures can be rapidly modeled and analyzed with the 2D and 3D texture capabilities.

Libraries
Engineers can focus on designing, rather than on mundane tasks, facilitated by LightTools' robust set of libraries, which include:

• 2,500 glass materials, 1,800 catalog lenses, 40 surface finishes, and 30 plastic materials

• Over 390 sources for automotive and LED applications.

• Display Enhancement Films (DEFs), including Brightness Enhancing Films (BEFs), Reflective Polarizer BEFs, and Turning Films. Users can load these standard films as is, or customize them.

• 90 pre-built systems for automotive, backlight, digital projector, imaging, LED, light pipe, general lighting, and stray light applications. These complete systems can be used as design templates.

• Example models that demonstrate key LightTools features, including using the COM/API for sharing data with other applications, modeling sources, and defining surface properties, receivers, geometry, and materials.

• 50 utilities. These “wizard-like” utilities assist the engineer in creating, analyzing, and modifying designs at a higher level.

Share Information Seamlessly
Information can freely flow between LightTools and a diverse array of CAD/CAM systems using industry-standard CAD formats, including STEP, IGES, and SAT.

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Boolean subtraction used to create
facet on light pipe

Skinned solid example