Faceted structure: a design for desired illumination and manufacture using 3D printing

Abstract

A new optical component of transmissive faceted structure that allows the reshaping of collimated white light beam is depicted and realized. After being illuminated, each facet element in the structure can slightly tilt along its own axes to deflect the incident light. The calculation of the tilt angles is made by a numerical approach, which is the inverse solution of the analytical relationships between the two-dimensional tilt angles of the facet element and the local coordinates of the outgoing ray on the target plan. For a predefined illumination pattern on a fixed screen, the numerical computation of the 2D tilt angle matrix of the faceted structure is described. In the meantime, a Monte Carlo ray tracing program is created to calculate and verify the irradiance map, all compared with well-recognized commercial illumination software programs. Afterwards, the component is fabricated using an innovative additive technology, inspired by 3D printing and proposed by Luximprint.