I was at the SPIE Optics & Photonics conference a couple weeks ago and a few people asked me about automatically assigning datasets to surfaces with STAR. There are a lot of cases that we have to look into to provide that reliably so it’s taking some time due to our other projects. That being said, this is a great opportunity to use the ZOS-API to make life easier!

I have attached a simple script that handles the straightforward case of assigning the datasets to the surfaces and saving a new file. 

MAJOR caveats are: 

• I am not a developer. As such, there may be bugs/cases where this script doesn't work.

• This script is provided to serve as a guide for you to make it your own.

• You must change to extension from “.txt.” to “.py”

• You need to provide:

   (1) A Path to the ZMX file that you want to add the datasets to

   (2) A Path to the folder where the multiphysics datasets are located

• Assumptions made with this script:

   (1) The multiphysics filenames were generated with or are in the naming format that are exported

       using the Export to STAR extension (“Surface_02_Deformation_2.txt”)  https://optics.ansys.com/hc/en-us/articles/42661746128787-STAR-Tools-in-OpticStudio-Ansys-Mechanical-Data-Export-Extension

   (2) The coordinate system that the datasets are saved with respect to the global coordinate reference surface in the OpticStudio file i.e. they are in the global coordinate system

Happy ray tracing!

Esteban Carbajal

Senior Product Manager | OpticStudio Enterprise & STAR

esteban.carbajal@ansys.com