Two software tools made by Breault Research Organization (BRO; Tucson, AZ)-the Advanced Systems Analysis Program (ASAP) and APEX-are both nonsequential ray-tracing programs, that is, they can model light distribution in an optical system regardless of the position of the optics, mechanical elements, and sources that are defined.

As these elements can be defined in a very general way and in any order, ASAP and APEX are applicable to a wide variety of optical systems. The four 90° light pipes modeled above illustrate the software’s capability to trace the paths of rays that escape one light pipe and enter another.

ASAP® is the time-proven industry standard in optical software, offering optical-system designers unmatched capability, flexibility, speed, and accuracy. ASAP accurately predicts the real-world performance of automotive lighting, bio-optic systems, coherent systems, displays, imaging systems, lightpipes, luminaires, and medical devices.

ASAP Benefits

With ASAP, you get the most sophisticated software program available for creating optical solutions in-house — everything you need to create without compromise and reduce your product development timeline.

Benefits

• Comprehensive modeling capabilities for producing groundbreaking, innovative optical designs without costly experimental prototyping iterations

• Exclusive interoperability features to address a whole range of problems inaccessible with other software programs

• The fastest non-sequential ray-tracing engine available

• Results you can count on every time

ASAP

This PRO edition of ASAP is everything you need to turn your creative visions into working prototypes, taking into consideration the most complex of optical phenomena and interoperability challenges.

Key ASAP Features

• NEW Run ASAP on 64-bit Windows Vista/7 Business and Ultimate Editions
• NEW Model both TIR and scatter at rough surface interfaces
• NEW Define nonlinear system object arrays using the ARRAY command
• NEW Create Abg (linear-shift invariant) and K-Correlation scatter models
• ENHANCED Use sources by Bridgelux, Cree, Lumileds, Nichia, and OSRAM
• Build system models requiring large numbers of objects and sources
• Model optical and mechanical system components
• Model imaging systems, illumination systems, and light-concentrating devices
• Model visible, ultraviolet, and infrared radiation in optical systems
• Model surface (BRDF) and volume scatter (pre-defined or custom)
• Model radiometry of complex systems, including radiance
• Visualize, analyze, and monitor light distributions using conformal radiometry
• Render system geometry, raytraces, and light sources
• Perform numerical and graphical CIE/Chromaticity analyses
• Optimize optical systems with the ASAP Optimization interface
• Save, review, and resume optimizations in progress with ASAP .osf files
• Tolerance optical systems in the ASAP Builder interface or scripts
• Import measured source data such as Radiant Sources™
• Import/Export Photometric Data in EULUMDAT and IES LM-63-02
• Import data from images using the BRO Digitizer™
• Use SolidWorks 3D CAD software with ASAP (license optional)
• Write ASAP-specific GTX files from within SolidWorks
• Assign object and layer names in SolidWorks
• Write ASAP-specific IGES files from within Rhinoceros®
• Import/Export IGES files using the ASAP IGES translator
• Import CATIA, GTX, or STEP files into ASAP for analysis
• Import geometry and optical properties using the XML file format
• Integrate scripts in Python, VBscript, Jscript, and other languages
• Use pre-defined LED, CCFL, incandescent, and arc sources
• Drag-and-drop sources, lenses, glasses, scatter models, and coatings
• Begin your simulation with one of 600+ example files
• Perform distributed processing tasks using the enhanced  ASAP REMOTE™
• Create your own custom workspace within ASAP

ASAP  

Design and analyze imaging and illumination systems with CAD interoperability

SAP® is powered by the ASAP non-sequential ray-tracing engine — known throughout the optics industry for its accuracy and efficiency. Rays can encounter surfaces in any order and any number of times, with automatic ray splitting. Optimized for speed, ASAP will trace millions of rays in minutes.

Use ASAP to model complex imaging systems, illumination systems, and light-concentrating devices. Create highly accurate source models using source images, point sources, ray grids, and fans. Model incandescent bulbs, LEDs, CCFLs, and HID arc lamps, or import from the BRO Light Source Library. Perform the analyses necessary to validate your designs without experimental prototyping.

Customers in need of CAD software solutions may also purchase a license of SolidWorks® 3D CAD software to complement their ASAP optical software solution. Multiple configurations of SolidWorks Parts, Assemblies, and Drawings are available. SolidWorks is an intuitive 3D-design environment optimized for use with ASAP. Write ASAP geometry files from within SolidWorks, import XML files, or use BRO's proprietary smartIGES™ system to import system models from SolidWorks and other CAD packages while maintaining fast, efficient ray-tracing speed.

ASAP includes a distributed-processing capability allowing you to complete big design jobs in a fraction of the time required by other tools — spawn up to 5 additional ASAP sessions on your Local Area Network (LAN), without leaving your desk.

ASAP Pro

As the name implies, ASAP PRO is for your toughest optical engineering challenges

ASAP® PRO combines the design power in the standard edition of ASAP with sophisticated features for modeling coherent systems, including Gaussian beam propagation, finite-difference beam-propagation, double-precision ray tracing, and polarization ray tracing. The resulting package is everything you need to turn your creative visions into working prototypes, taking into consideration the most complex of optical phenomena and interoperability challenges.

In addition to fully-featured CAD interoperability and wave optics power, ASAP PRO will import lens-design application files from CODE V®, OSLO®, SYNOPSYS™, and ZEMAX®, and is interoperable with the finite-difference time-domain code FDTD Solutions™. Together, ASAP and FDTD Solutions handle both macroscopic systems and microstructures in an elegant manner — a first in the optics industry. No other software combination spans such a large optical space.

ASAP PRO includes a distributed-processing capability allowing you to complete big design jobs in a fraction of the time required by other tools — spawn up to 5 additional ASAP sessions on your Local Area Network (LAN), without leaving your desk.

BIO Toolkit for ASAP

The BIO Toolkit™ for use with ASAP® Optical Software is a set of interactive and example scripts for modeling light propagation and scattering in biological systems. The Toolkit is the only simulation tool available to model light/tissue interactions in human skin at user-defined wavelengths, and to model light propagation in accurate, monocular or binocular human eye models.

Advanced Human Eye Model™ (AHEM™): a flexible eye-model creation system utilizing interactive menus (includes numerous user-defined settings, as well as cloning and positioning tools). Users may customize parameters to build monocular or binocular models, complete with detailed geometry, such as a gradient-index natural lens or a user-designed intraocular lens, and contact or spectacle lenses with realistic optical properties. 

Realistic Skin Model™ (RSM™): a flexible skin-phantom creation system utilizing interactive menus to simplify the modeling process (includes hair, blood vessels, and dermal papillae modeling). Users may select a wavelength between 250 and 1000nm and use stored data to model tissue. Alternatively, users may input their own measured data to build custom models.

Biological system models, such as surfaces rendered using CT or MRI scans, often consist of thousands of optically-significant objects. Therefore, the BIO Toolkit is paired with ASAP, which has the CAD interoperability and advanced ray-tracing features to import, analyze, and resolve fine detail in biological systems. Interoperable with SolidWorks®, Rhinoceros®, and other CAD packages, ASAP and the BIO Toolkit represent the world's most sophisticated software package for modeling bio-optical systems.

BIO Toolkit Features

• Advanced Human Eye Model (AHEM): a flexible eye-model creation system utilizing interactive menus (includes numerous user-defined settings, as well as cloning and positioning tools)
• Realistic Skin Model (RSM): a flexible skin-phantom creation system utilizing interactive menus to simplify the modeling process (includes hair, blood vessels, and dermal papillae modeling)
• Tissue Generator: a slab tissue model creation script utilizing interactive menus for easy input of optical properties
• Model complex biological system geometry relevant to bio-optics simulations, such as the human bladder and chest wall
• Model fluorescence within biological systems, including scaling for quantum efficiency and scatter effects of surrounding structure
• Model biological structures within optical device designs representing complete virtual prototyping solutions
• Model light-tissue interactions for research purposes such as photo-dynamic therapy efficacy

CATIA Module for ASAP

The CATIA Module allows ASAP users to open native CATIA® V5 files from within ASAP. BRO is an adopter of the CAA V5 architecture, which means CATIA users can count on accurate, seamless geometry transitions into ASAP.

CATIA Module Features

• Open native CAA V5 CATIA files from the program by Dassault Systemes

ELTM for ASAP

The Exterior Lighting Test Module (ELTM) automates the task of SAE, FMVSS and ECE test compliance for automotive lighting designers. The ELTM also supports and stores user-defined tests, walks users through the setup process, and presents a pass/fail indicator for each test point.

ELTM Features

• ECE (Economic Commission for Europe) lighting tests
• FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) lighting tests
• SAE Ground Vehicle Lighting Standards tests (SAE HS-34 Manual)
• Use pass/fail indicators for predefined or user-defined lighting tests

REMOTE for ASAP

Numerous REMOTE enhancements are available in the ASAP 2009 V1R1 release, including the option to purchase additional REMOTE session licenses. REMOTE session licenses are used for distributed processing on multiple cores, processors, and networked computers.

All editions of ASAP come with 5 REMOTE session licenses that can be used in concert with two local ASAP sessions. Each REMOTE session license can be assigned to perform tasks on a particular core of a particular processor. With the new improvements in ASAP 2009, you may now assign REMOTE sessions to all available cores on your local machine.

Additional REMOTE session licenses may be purchased in increments of 1, 5, 10, 15, 25, 50, and 100 licenses. Contact your ASAP Sales Representative for pricing.

REMOTE Features

• Initialize, monitor, and retrieve data from REMOTE sessions
• Control how REMOTE sessions are configured on available cores, processors, and computers
• Trace more rays, run tolerancing studies, evaluate multiple designs simultaneously
• Imagine the power of an additional 5, 25, or even 100 computers added to your workflow

SolidWorks 3D Modeling Engine

Customers in need of CAD software solutions may purchase a license of SolidWorks 3D CAD software to complement their ASAP optical software solution. Multiple configurations of SolidWorks Parts, Assemblies, and Drawings are available. SolidWorks is an intuitive 3D-design environment optimized for use with ASAP. Write ASAP geometry files from within SolidWorks, import XML files, or use BRO's proprietary smartIGES™ system to import system models from SolidWorks and other CAD packages while maintaining fast, efficient ray-tracing speed.

• Model optical components and systems in the industry-standard SolidWorks® 3D CAD software (license optional)
• Choose your own SolidWorks configuration: Parts Only, Parts & Assemblies, or Parts, Assemblies & Drawings
• Assign object and layer names in SolidWorks prior to analysis in ASAP
• Export ASAP geometry files from within SolidWorks