Hey David,

Using the SOSO command with MIRROR surfaces will not work (or any other command that uses a relative reference in the LDE).  Although it’s hidden in the LDE, the underlying code for drawing the mirror’s substrate is to actually insert a true “dummy” surface and let the layout engine draw the substrate.  This is a known issue and I doubt it will be “fixed”.

I believe if you change the Mirror Substrate to None, this might allow the SOSO command to work with a mirror, but I can’t remember for sure.  

Hey @MichaelH,

Thanks for the information. Just to be sure I understand this correctly, SOSO seems to return the correct surface number, but you are saying that there is then an issue after the solve when the layout engine is used, is that right? I will try with a mirror coating as you suggest and keep this post updated.

Thanks again for your help and take care,

David 

Hey David,

SOSO itself returns the correct surface number for the calling row, but when you use SOSO(0) - 1, the minus 1 is what is causing the error.  I don’t know where the logic is for the back of the MIRROR substrate, but combining SOSO with a relative offset will typically give errors with a reflective system. 

The 2 options I would try:

1. Change the mirror’s Substrate Thickness to None
2. Use SRCN combined with a comment to identify the CB.  I would make both the CB & the surface with the solve have the same unique comment.  Then you can use SOSO(0) + SPRO/$BUFFER() to get the comment of the solve surface and then SRCN with a value of 1 to find the CB surface.  This way, you are directly identifying the surface and not relying on relative offsets of -1.

@MichaelH 

Thanks for the clarification. I’ve tried your two options and this is the outcome:

1. Changing the Mirror Substrate to None fixes the issue (anything else is a problem)
2. Working like a charm, for anyone interested, I’ve put my macro solve below

solve_surface = SOSO(0)

dummy = SPRO(solve_surface, 1)
identifier$ = $BUFFER()

fold_surface = SRCN(identifier$, 1)

fold_tilt_x = PARM(3, fold_surface)

fold_offset = SIGN(fold_tilt_x) * ( 90 - 2 * ABSO(fold_tilt_x) )

SOLVERETURN fold_offset

The only thing left is perhaps if we could have SOSO for the actual column where the solve has been called so I could replace my hard-coded 3 for Tilt About X.

This is brillant, thank you so much Michael, you are gold!

Take care,

David

Hey David,

I’ve been pushing for a SOCO-like function to return the column in the LDE, NCE, & MCE for years now, but it’s not implemented yet.  For editors with a dynamic number of columns, having a function which returns the column number would be amazing for ZPL solves.

Zemax has added a lot of cool features with their last 2 releases so maybe this will make it in a future release in the near future.