Defining the Prisms Orientation - Variable Direction

Prerequisites: A Light Guide must be created.
  1. Define the prisms' orientation and construction mode:
    1. From the Type drop-down list, select how the prism should be oriented in relation to the light guide body. Select Variable direction if you want to define multiple optical axes along the guide.

      Defining multiple optical axes ensures you to have a smooth variation of lit appearance when the observer direction is changing. This can also be useful to pass regulations like sidemarker (where some light need to be sent to the side) in addition to Position Lamp.

      The Hybrid operation is automatically set when setting Variable direction. The prisms will then be both removed/added based on prisms parameters.

    2. In the 3D view, click and select several lines to define the optical axes.
      Note: We recommend you to create the lines for the optical axes in advance.
      Note: The optical axis must not be collinear with any tangent to the guide curve.

      You can select a same line for several optical axes, if you want to have the same optical axis direction at different positions along the guide.

      Optical axes are used to define the average orientation in which the light is going to be extracted from the light guide.

      The selected optical axes appear in the Optical axis list.
    3. In the Optical axis list, for each optical axis, set its Position along the curve.
      The position is expressed in % (a position of 50 places the optical axis in the middle of the guide).
  2. Define the Refractive index of the light guide.
  3. In Distances, from the Type drop-down list, select Curvilinear to base the distances on the guide curve
    The Projection mode is incompatible with the Normal To Surface and Variable Direction modes.
  4. In Start and End group boxes, define the size of the prism-free zones at the beginning and at the end of the guide curve.
    Note: Start value is always respected, however in some cases End value might not be respected because the last prism is not cut by this parameter. Prisms are created to respect the End value as much as possible.
Now, define the prism geometries.