During a raytracing process, rays encounter surfaces that might have a combination of reflection, transmission, absorption and scatter properties that split the rays into various components. FRED allocates flux values to each ray by looking at these surface properties in a specific order. The user...
Read MoreThis knowledge base article describes a script that generates a FRED source that models the properties of solar light incident on a tilted or solar-tracking surface. The calculations are based on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) “Bird Simple Spectral Model”. The model, created by...
Read MoreThis knowledge base article discusses how to use FRED’s digitization tool with polar data. A typical application would be to specify ray directions for a source using an intensity profile from a specification sheet. When available it is preferable to use a rayset in place...
Read MoreLenslet arrays are used in a variety of applications that include beam homogenization. This knowledge base article demonstrates the setup of an imaging lenslet array for creating uniform incoherent illumination on a detector. The input beam has a gaussian profile with half width equal to...
Read MoreFRED does not currently include a built-in cylindrical lens creator. Cylindrical lenses must be entered either manually surface by surface or by adding a catalog cylindrical lens and adjusting it accordingly. This knowledge base article includes a script that generates a cylindrical lens based on...
Read MoreThis knowledge base article demonstrates a script that will create a truncated cone subassembly consisting of two end planes and a tapered cylinder. The cone is specified by the two end surface radii and the axial height of the truncated cone. In this implementation r1...
Read MoreAs of version 10.41 there is no script command equivalent to the positions spot diagram analysis available in the GUI. This knowledge base article details a script utility which manually performs the equivalent positions spot diagram analysis in the scripting language. Scripted Positions Spot Diagram PDF Download...
Read MoreThe best geometric focus calculation can be made from the GUI ( Menu > Analysis > Best Geometric Focus ) and from the scripting language using the BestFocus subroutine. Performing this analysis using the scripting language can be quite useful because the calculation and any...
Read MoreCoherent sources are represented in FRED using a superposition of Gaussian beamlets. The ray grid spacing of the source is used to determine the waist and divergence of the beamlets. To properly model coherent propagation properties, the beamlets must remain Gaussian and perform best when...
Read MoreThis knowledge base article demonstrates a script utility which calculates the Re{} and Im{} components of the E field along the s, p, x and y directions for each ray in the ray buffer. In the GUI this information is printed to the output window...
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