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Coating Designer: Bugfixes and program modifications
Important: Coating Designer is based on SCOUT. All modifications of SCOUT also affect CODE.
January 99
WCD now supports the computation of the color coordinates X,Y,Z, x,y,z, Lab and L*a*b* for illuminants A, D65 and C both for 2° and 10° observation angle.
Also Light Transmittance and Light Reflectance are calculated for the illuminants A, D65 and C.
You can now compute the integration of the product of the layer stack reflectance or transmittance and a user-defined spectrum. The integral can be optimized like all other integral quantities. This feature is useful if you have to design a layer stack which absorbs as much radiation as possible from a given light source, such as in the case of solar absorbers for heating water or photovoltaic applications.
April 99
WCD now computes the quantities 'Dominant wavelength' and 'Purity'. The corresponding objects also show the position of the 'layer stack color' in the x-y-colorplane. While changing any of the model parameters, e.g. by sliding a layer thickness, you can watch an instant update of the color's location in the x-y-plane.
With 'Color view' objects you can also see instantly on the screen how the sample will look like. A rectangle is filled with the computed color of the spectrum. Although usually computer screens are not calibrated and the transformation of color coordinates to screen R,G,B-values is not really exact, this feature can be very instructive. In combination with the new feature that the angle of incidence now is a fit parameter that can be varied by sliders you can elegantly rotate a window coating with the mouse and see how its appearance changes.
The computed integral values can be accessed from other programs by OLE automation. An application example is given in the new helpfile.
Juli 99
An error in the computation of the Lab-color coordinates has been found and removed. WCD computed always the absolute value of these quantities, now also the sign is computed correctly.
August 99
An error in the computation of the color coordinate b* has been found and removed.
January 2000
Parallel to the change from SCOUT_98 to SCOUT (version 2) we have changed the name Window Coating Designer to CODE (Coating Designer). This indicates that the software is useful not only for window coatings, but also for other kinds of layer stacks with optical functions.
September 2000
To view the appearance of coatings for architectural applications you can now visualize a virtual tower equipped with you newly designed layer stack. For each window of the building the reflectance spectrum and the corresponding color is computed (for unpolarized radiation) taking into account the appropriate angle of incidence.
October 2000
The new commands Parameter variation and Repeat parameter variation in the Actions submenu (see the description on the SCOUT bugfix page) can also be used in CODE. Besides the variation of the spectra, CODE also computes the variation of quantities like colors and integral reflection and transmission values. In combination with the new graphical capabilities of the workbook, these new commands are very poerful tools for thin film designs.
The actual values of integral quantities can now be displayed in views. Views can also contain color visualizations now.
December 2000
After some internal re-arrangements large CODE configurations require significantly less Windows resources.
January 2001
The computation of optical monitoring charts has been implemented in CODE.
January 2003
Version 2.1 is released: All changes of the SCOUT software are also made in CODE.
New integral quantities: g, color rendering index, emissivity, thermal transmittance U
21.1.2003: Sorry, we just found that the new SCOUT 2.13 version cannot read configurations properly in some cases. The problem is fixed now, please download the new program file from the download section (the small CODE 2.1 download only). Replace the program file Win_coat.exe by the new one.
January 2004
The Report command in the list of integral quantities works properly now.
The values of integral quantities can be accessed in the new list of 'Optical functions'. This way you can add these items to the batch control window.
November 2004
As described for the SCOUT software, the layer stack definition window has been improved. On the left side you see a treeview of pre-defined layer stacks that you can drag into the layer stack definition. CODE looks for layer stack definitions in the database folders 'Substrates', 'Panes', 'Gases', 'Foils' and 'Coatings'.
In the list of integral quantities, there are now objects that compute the absorption of solar radiation (DIN and EN standard) in the first, second and third pane of multiple glazings.
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