Sharing an automation tool for import/generation of .zmx file from a generalized excel table format (import from xlsx).

In some cases, a .zmx file needs to be generated from a general-format tabular data. A common example is importing/generating a .zmx lens file from a patent (pdf table). This tool helps to automate the process by allowing direct .zmx file generation from excel, by using a standardized excel table format.

In the example of importing a patent, the user could employ an LLM as an intermediate step to format from the pdf table into text, or into the described excel table format. (Ideally the LLM could generate a .zmx directly from i.e. pdf, but this approach still seems problematic with current capabilities.)

The tool can be accessed from the repo linked below. The python-based ZOSAPI tool, along with documentation (pptx) and example files are included.

ZachDerocher/zemax-xlsx-import: Automated data import to Zemax (sequential) of lens data from xlsx