Creating a Physical Camera

The following procedure helps you create a Physical Camera to simulate a lens system.

To create a Physical Camera:

Prerequisites:

You must have exported a Speos Light Box containing a lens system following specific rules.

You must have created an Irradiance sensor following specific rules.

Make sure the Physical Camera is in the ambient material. That is to say, avoid including the Physical Camera in a volumic body.

  1. From the Light Simulation tab, click System > Physical Camera .
  2. Define the Axis System of the Physical Camera in the 3D view by clicking to select one point for the origin, to select a line for the X axis, to select a line for the Y axis or click and select a coordinate system to autofill the Axis System.


    The Axis System is only used to position the optical system included in the Light Box.

    Important: Make sure the sensor is not tangent to a geometry.
    Note: If you define manually one axis only, the other axis is automatically (and randomly) calculated by Speos in the 3D view. However, the other axis in the Definition panel may not correspond to the axis in the 3D view. Please refer to the axis in the 3D view.
    If you need to adjust the axes orientation, use Reverse direction on one or both axes.
  3. In the Light Box section, browse and select a *.speoslightbox that contains all the geometries of a lens system.
  4. In the General section:
    1. Define the Number of sequences to be provided in the *.xmp result.

      Number of Sequences determines the number of sequences to play and provide into the *.xmp result file.

      Number of Sequences is useful only if you add a sequence file as input of the Physical Camera.

    2. In the Sequence file field, you can add or not a Sequence file.
      Note: When an *.OPTSequence file is used in a Physical Camera, every generated simulation result filename (*.xmp, *.lpf, etc.) is suffixed with "_sequential".

      For more details on the purpose of adding a sequence file or not, refer to Understanding the Physical Camera Parameters.

  5. In the Sensor section, select an Irradiance sensor. Make sure the sensor follow the rules.
    Depending on whether you add a Sequence file or not, the Layer type choice will differ. For more information refer to Understanding the Physical Camera Parameters.
  6. In the Meshing section, select the Ray tracer precision algorithm to be used by the propagation engine of the Physical Camera:
    The Ray tracer precision is dedicated to calculate the intersections between rays and the geometries contained in the Light Box used in the Physical Camera.

    • Select Single

      The Single Precision mode allows you to use a fast ray tracing technique that provides a standard level of precision.

    • Select Double

      The Double Precision mode uses Smart Engine, a ray tracing technique that provides a high level of precision.

  7. In the Preview section, with Display mode, select how should the Physical Camera be displayed in the 3D view.
  8. In the 3D view, click to compute the Physical Camera.
The Physical Camera is created and visible in Speos tree and in the 3D view.