Hello!
Usually I visit NX CAM Discussion Forum, but now want to remember my old-old project for automotive optics designers.
Customer set a problem: "We have Unigraphics model with light source, some reflector bodies, few refractor (glass or plastic) bodies, few non-translucent bodies. We know power of light sourse and we want to see on measure screen fringe plot for illumination. Can you trace few millions rays from light source and draw illumination plot?"
This discussion was at 1996 and first thought was - "We will try Ray Trace High Quolity Image!" - No results...
When we build first GRIP (!) application, where by Monte-Carlo we generate rays, trace it through optics elements using laws for linear optic and each ray have a "quant" of power. We generate mesh on measure screen and calculate all rays for each mesh elements and calc illumination value for each point on screen.
GRIP was too slowly...
And when we build User Function on C, for UNIX Silicon Power station.
Here some pictures:
Customer say me - "We use it up today. Sometime we trace 10 000 000 rays for good results. And this results confirmed by real tests."