Photopia 2020 Release

SOLIDWORKS rayset support

Speed Improvements


Solidworks 3D IP Tooth Light

Blue LED fiber optic illuminating a 3D model of a tooth

3D Illuminance Planes

Now in Photopia for Solidworks illuminance planes are no longer limited to planar rectangles. You can create illuminance planes on any surface, allowing you greater flexibility in assessing your optical design.

Solidworks 3D Surface Illuminance on Airplane Wing

Leading edge of airplane wing showing illuminance on surface

To assign a 3D surface as an illuminance recorder, first select the surface and then choose "Add Illuminance Plane / Add Recording Plane" from the Photopia Command Manager inside of Solidworks. By default, all recording objects and illuminance planes are scaled such that their magnitudes are relative to each other. You can adjust the scale in the Tools > Photopia > General Settings.

Traditional illuminance planes are still the best option when you need to get illuminance values and statistics over your surface. To define an illuminance plane, you'll use the same method as before, first setting up a rectangular plane, then clicking "Add Illuminance Plane / Add Recording Plane" with nothing selected, and then selecting the rectangular plane. You can then adjust grid settings and other options.

Solidworks 3D IP Settings


All Changes from 2019 to 2020

SOLIDWORKS: Added rayset support

SOLIDWORKS: Automatic IES export

SOLIDWORKS: Faster raytrace

SOLIDWORKS: u'v' illuminance data

SOLIDWORKS: Improved Recording object text

SOLIDWORKS: Fixed LDT dimension swap

SOLIDWORKS: New external raytracer option

SOLIDWORKS: Sample ray filter improvements

SOLIDWORKS: Fixed crash with flexible sub-assemblies

SOLIDWORKS: Fixed illuminance brightness scaling

Both: Added lamp phosphor modeling

Both: Fixed issue with asymmetric BRD/BTD

Both: Fixed issue with non-spectral refractor

Material Lab: Fixed transmittance calc

Reports: New CEC JA8, DLC and EnergyStar reports

Reports: Fixed beam angle reporting for asymmetric

Reports: Fixed end of beam values for asymmetric

Reports: New FAA Check report

Reports: More robust legend for polar plots

Reports: More robust peak intensity point

Reports: More robust FVH/BVH/UL LCS labels