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I will be sending Support a (proprietary) .ZAR file demonstrating these two issues I just encountered in OpticStudio 20.3 (haven't tried this before, so I don't know if these are new or not).



Meanwhile, has anybody else encountered either of these 2 effects (in order of decreasing seriousness):



(1) For a concave mirror, I wanted to use a pickup solve from a Thickness (in this case object thickness on Surface 0) to the Radius of the mirror (Surface 1).  I wanted to set R = -2H where H is the Object Thickness in order to approximately collimate the light (i.e. set the focal length of the mirror to equal the object thickness, make it concave to the left using a negative Radius).



Using a Solve Type: Pickup, I set From Surface: 0 (object) , Scale Factor: -2 (to make Radius = -2*H) and From Column: Thickness.



The Radius came out 1/2 the thickness, not 2x !!  To get what I needed, I had to set Scale Factor: -0.5 ...only then will Radius = -2.0*H. ??!!



Could this have anything to do with the next thickness after the mirror being negative? (which I had to do to make the mirror work properly, i.e., for the Law of Reflection to work)   I've avoided inserting Coordinate Breaks, because frankly, I couldn't figure out how to make my system work with any combination of 180-degree axis flips or negative signs on thicknesses.



(2) 3D Layout graphics window:



In the same model, which has small optical elements ~0.3 mm across, I used Project Preferences : Graphics  to adjust arrow fletch size (which does not appear to be linear, but OK, I liked it at Fletch Size = 0.6.   Fletch size 1 was way too big.



But as you can tell from (1), I needed to use Draw Local Axis a lot to try to figure out signs of propagation.  Unfortunately, when I scale the model down to this 0.3 mm element size, the Local Axes don't scale down, and are WAY HUGE compared to the surfaces.



I tried adjusting 'Orientation Indicator Size' in Project Preferences : Graphics, (e.g. down to 0.01 from the default 1) but it has no effect on the Local Axis markers.  Is it supposed to?  Or is there something else that is an Orientation Indicator Size (I see no effect on the XYZ global axis markers in the corner of the 3D Layout window, either)?  Or a different way to make the Local Axis markers smaller in the 3D Layout window, which is what I really want?



-- Greg

I just created a support case and attached the .ZAR file.  Thanks in advance!



-- Greg

Thanks, Greg. We'll take a look at the Portal case for you.

I'll be sending a separate reply to the Support case, but for public information, here is the status:



(1) Curvature Pickup is not a bug, it really is supposed to scale Curvature, not Radius.



I should have read the manual or Help file, which says clearly,



'When using a curvature pickup solve and targeting another surface's Radius in Lens Data Editor, the Scale Factor is applied to the curvature, not the radius of curvature. For example, if the targeted radius is 2 and the Scale Factor in the curvature pickup solve is 0.5, the calculated value shown in the Lens Data Editor will be 1/((1/2)*0.5) = 4.'



(2) Fletch Size and Local Axis as-drawn size are BOTH scaled by the Fletch Size setting.  Unfortunately, I can't find a single setting that works for me in my model. See 2 images below, one with Fletch Size = 0.05, which makes the Local Axis size reasonable, but fletches on the rays too tiny to see, and one with Fletch Size = 0.6, which makes the ray fletches pleasing to me, but the Local Axis marks way too big for my taste.





So if not a 'BUG,' perhaps we should call this a Feature Request to allow separate scaling of these two objects, Fletch Rays and Draw Local Axis.



I still don't know what the Orientation Indicator Size setting does, because the XYZ axis mark at the lower left doesn't appear to change when I adjust that setting by orders of  magnitude.  What does it apply to?



-- Greg

Hi Greg,



Thanks for your post here! I can see what you mean about the Fletch Rays and Draw Local Axis having some benefit in being able to render them at different sizes. I will go ahead and submit this as a feature request for our Product Team to review.



As for the Orientation Indicator Size setting, that setting is specific to the XYZ Axis on our Classic rendering for our layout plots. It doesn't affect the newer renderings of our layout plots:











I do think it's a bit vague in our Help Files, though, so I'll go ahead and submit an update there to at least address/clarify the current behavior.



Please let us know if you have any more questions here!



~ Angel

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