Accelerating automotive lighting design in CATIA

Expanded surface sensor
The LucidShape surface sensor feature supports accurate analyses of illuminance and irradiance on curved surfaces. This feature enables designers to evaluate performance of highly complex or curved lamp components, such as those used in interior ambient illumination, light guide surfaces, and stylised headlamps and tail lamps. The surface sensor feature has been expanded with more powerful and flexible analysis options that give designers the ability to:

• Measure luminous flux on any geometry when the surface sensor is combined with the lumen sensor material. Geometry can consist of a single surface with one or more faces or multiple surfaces, and surfaces can be planar or curved.
• Display results of the surface sensor with lumen sensor material in 3D in the part design view.
• Set separate analysis options for the lux sensor and lumen sensor in the same simulation to efficiently analyse lux sensor and lumen sensor results.
• Specify the criteria for light data measurements such as intersection point, maximum value (including its XYZ position), or integral value to streamline analyses and tailor the output to fit the application. It is also possible to control the scope of the measurement - to cover a single face, for example, or the entire lumen sensor.
• Analyse, measure, and visualise colour effects directly in the part design view.

Ray result filtering by surface
A new surface result filter allows designers to filter the rays recorded on a sensor based on their interactions with specified surfaces. For example, designers can record only rays that hit a surface last, rays that hit at least one of the specified surfaces, or rays that hit all the specified surfaces during a simulation. This feature provides an efficient way to identify and troubleshoot parts that interfere with light distribution.

Enhancements to the Light Guide Design Module
The Light Guide Design Module saves designers time with illumination optimisation features that automatically design light guides and their extraction features.

New capabilities in this release include:

• New options for prism items that enable designers to save portions of a design and apply them as a starting point for a new light guide, which could have a different number of prisms, if desired.
• An option that allows designers to set non-uniform spacing of prisms according to a desired extraction density (XWidth) curve, which is useful when there are design constraints on the smallest XWidth size.
• The ability to detect 'ambiguous' surface profiles using end gaps, as well as the ability to make intelligent profile rotation guesses based on nearest 'good' neighbour profiles.
• XYZ and LMN light target direction list options, which are easier to use than HV space, for example, to aim light from a light guide to a specific region in an interior lighting design application.
• Simplified view setup that allows designers to obtain parameter values by selecting an axis system.
• The ability to optimise for flux uniformity with prism items other than XWidth, which provides flexibility for special applications.