Creating Micro Optical Stripes

This procedures shows how to create Micro Optical Stripes from any guide curve.

To create Micro Optical Stripes:

Prerequisites: Construction curves outlining the micro optical stripes lengths should already be sketched.
  1. From the Design tab, click Micro Optical Stripes .
  2. Select the Guide curve and Second curve:
    The Guide curve and the Second curve define the starting and ending points of the stripes processed in the Support surface according to the Construction type and the Projection type.
    1. In the 3D view, click and select a curve as Guide curve.
    2. In the 3D view, click and select a curve as Second curve.
  3. Select the Construction type to define how to process the stripes in the Support surface:

    • Constant ratio: the relative position of a stripe along the Second curve is equal to the relative position of the stripe along the Guide curve according to the length of the curves.

      Note: When building Micro Optical Stripes based on Constant Ratio, we recommend you to define the Support side as Inner surface, or the Projection type as Normal To Support Surface. Otherwise, you may face with a constant ratio not being respected along the curves.
    • Same pitch: the distance (pitch) between two stripes on the Second curve is equal to the distance between these two stripes on the Guide curve.
    • Normal to guide curve: stripes are created from the Guide curve to the Second curve according to the normal direction to the Guide curve at their specific starting point.
  4. In the 3D view, click and select a line to define the Optical axis.

    The Optical axis is used to define the orientation in which the light is going to be extracted from the light guide.

    Note: The Optical axis must not be collinear with any tangent to the support surface.
  5. In the 3D view, click and select the Support surface on which the stripes are projected according to the Projection type.
    Note: A face or a multifaces body can be selected as surface.
  6. Select the Projection type to define how the stripes are projected on the support surface:
    • Select Along Optical Axis to project the stripes according to the Optical axis.
    • Select Normal To Support Surface to project the stripes according to the normal of the support surface.
  7. In the Support side drop-down list, Select Inner support or Outer support.
    The Support side defines on which side of the light guide the support surface is placed.
  8. Define the Thickness of the light guide.
  9. In the Tool Bit Shape section:
    1. In Side angle, define the trajectory of the tangent to the curvature in [0 ; 90].
    2. In Radius, define the radius of curvature of the Tool Bit in [0.005 ; infinity[.
    The Tool Bit Shape defines the profile of the tool used to process the mold.
  10. In the Control Points section, click to add a control point.
  11. In the Control Points Definition panel, for each control point created:
    1. In Position, define the position of the control point along the light guide in percentage of the light guide.
    2. In Depth, define how deep the Tool Bit goes to create the mold in [0 ; infinity[.

      The depth represents the depth of the stripes on the light guide.

    3. In Pitch, define the distance between two consecutive stripes in [0 ; infinity[.
    4. In Top length, define the offset between the Start and End Tool Bit shapes in [0 ; infinity[.
    5. In Bit shape start angle and Bit shape end angle, define the angles of attach of the Tool Bit to process the mold in [0 ; 90].
  12. In the Manufacturing section:
    1. In the 3D view, click and select the Drafting axis.
      The Drafting axis is the direction in which the light guide is going to be removed from the mold.
    2. Define the Drafting angle in [0 ; 90[.
      The Drafting angle is the angle to respect in order to be able to remove the light guide from the mold.
  13. If you want to want to preview how the stripes will be generated according to the parameters you set, in the Design tree, right-click the Micro Optical Stripes and click Preview Stripes.
    The preview shows the top curve of each stripe.
  14. Click Compute to build the feature.
    Note: Stripes on edges of the guide that cannot be entirely generated are not built at all.
The Micro Optical Stripes are created and appear both in the tree and in the 3D view.