TracePro TracePro Knowledge Base

File Sources – Ray Files – file formats – origin and conversion

Question

I have ray files in several formats (SPEOS, Lucidshape, LightTool & ASAP).
Is there a way to use them in TracePro, perhaps a conversion tool?

Solution

I understand your direct question is if ray files of our competitors can be converted to TracePro. I have several suggestions, I will list them in order of what I see as the best suggestion, and the direct conversion will be lower on the list.

1. If you were able to obtain ray files of our competitors, it is possible that the same measurement data and a software program can also create a TracePro ray file.

If you obtained the data from a manufacturer of the light source, it is likely that the measurement was made by Radiant Vision Systems or Opsira:

There may be references to Pro Source, the software from Radiant Vision Systems, and Luca Raymaker, the software from Opsira.

It is possible that the manufacturer of the source has the measurement file and the software to convert it. It is also possible they had Radiant or Opsira convert and send files.

I suggest the general idea to go back to the source of the ray files you obtained, follow the path back to the originating measurement file, and use the software to save a TracePro ray file.

2. The Source Builder in TracePro has capability to convert some ray files:

Define menu, Source Builder

close Choose a Task to do

Tools|File Source Converter

select the icon to locate a file

expand the list of file types

other TracePro files

Pro Source

LightTools

LucidShape

Zemax

3. Direct conversion from one ray file to another is possible but has challenges.

TracePro ray files have two options for the format, text or binary.

The text files are simple, each row of data has 7 columns

XYZ start location of the ray

XYZ direction vectors

flux

If a competitor file is also text, it may be easy to see the relationship.

The TracePro Help has details of the file format.

On a practical level, most ray files made available by manufacturers are binary, because the files are generally quite large and occupy website resources, so the binary files are a little easier to download.

If you open your files in a Text Editor (e.g. NotePad ++ installed with TracePro), you can see if they are text or binary.