Optical ray tracing for luminescent materials and spectral converter photovoltaic devices

Ray-tracing luminescent solar concentrators

pvtrace is a statistical photon path tracer written in Python. Rays are followed through a 3D scene and their interactions with objects are recorded to build up statistical information about energy flow.

This is useful in photovoltaics and non-imaging optics where the goal is to design systems which efficiently transport light to target locations.

One of its key features is the ability to simulate re-absorption in luminescent materials. For example, like in devices like Luminescent Solar Concentrators (LSCs).

Generation of 3D objects using pyvista or stl files

Here, we will include arbitrary geometries using pyvista or stl files.

Install

Linux and Windows using Conda

On Linux and Windows you must use conda to create the python environment.

conda create --name pvtrace-env python=3.7.8 numpy matplotlib pandas jupyter
conda activate pvtrace-env
pip install pvtrace
pip install pyvista