Announcing pvtrace v1.0

[Daniel Farrell]

Hello list,

It's been a while! I'd like to introduce you to:

pvtrace -- Optical ray tracing for photovoltaic devices and
luminescent materials

Available on github, https://github.com/danieljfarrell/pvtrace

pvtrace was originally written to simulate luminescent solar
concentrators during my PhD studies. However it has grown in to a much
more powerful tool, capable of optical ray tracing through complicated
shapes, and the collection of statistical data to enable
characterisation of optics useful for photovoltaics and solar energy
conversion.

Overview of features:
* Constructive Solid Geometry
* Generalised 3D ray intersections (ray optics):
- ray-box
- ray-cylinder
- ray-CSG object
* Arbitrary 3D object transformations:
- translation
- rotation
- scaling and skewing
*Photon path visualiser
*Statistical collection of photonic properties:
- wavelength
- direction
* Automatic Fresnel reflection and refraction
* Sampling from statistical distributions:
- optical absorption coefficient
- emission spectrum
- wavelength and angular reflectivity

pvtrace is written entirely in Python. Using the numpy and scipy
libraries. This was chosen to enable rapid development, learning and
collaboration rather than speed of execution. On a single core machine
pvtrace takes a few minutes to produce sensible results which for me
is an acceptable trade-off considering the pleasure it was to write in
Python!

Best regards,

Daniel