Dear Zemax community  I have a problem transfering my student licence . It's activated on my old laptop and it's broken now so I can't activated on my new laptop with the first activation Key .  Do you know how can I get a new activation key to my licence ? how to solve this problem .  Adam

I am setting up a new computer and I need to transfer my license from my older computer to the new computer. When I open the Zemax License Manager on my old computer I see my license, but on the 'Send License' tab the 'transfer' button is grayed out. How do I go about transfering the license to my new computer?

Hello,   I have a system of two lenses with f1=10cm and f2=20cm. Magnification is M=-1.1x. We take two lenses be following links: https://www.newport.com/p/KBX166 and https://www.newport.com/p/KBX154 . And need to define a distance between these two lenses if we place an object in 2cm from the front focal point.   So in terms of this task, I have two questions: 1. How can I define in Zemax distance between the first lens and the object if I know that between the object and the FFL it is 2cm. 2. How can I measure the distance between two lenses and the total throw?   Thank you in advance!

Good evening, I am using the license 38439 (Horiba), the person using it initially has left the company and the license support is expired. I need to access the 4 articles in this page : https://my.zemax.com/en-US/learning-paths/build-spectrometer/ Would you please help me? Thanks.  

I used us_arrayeven in sequential mode, the seidel coefficients shows the array is an unsupported type and may invalidate the results. can I reply on these results? Also, if i use multi-configuration, the aberration values do not change. 

Hello, I am doing some trials with a laser scanning setup. These are just preliminary, I still need to insert the right collimating lens, focusing lens and beam expander later. But is was trying to position the 'moving lens' to get the smalles spot size (image at focus), but from the lay outs, it seems the focus is a bit in front of the image plane. Is there another way to do this optimization? Or is this the right result? Edit: My bad, this is probably just the spherical abberation that is out of whack. Also, how can I best model the input laser beam? It will be a singlemode fiber with a 25µm core. Now I did it via object space NA number.

Hello OpticStudio colleagues, My name is Vadim and i'm using OpticStudio 21.1 and 16.5 on different machines. Following problem happens with 16.5 that I tried but cannot find a solution. For some reason, OpticStudio 16.5 stopped launching - first screen is being opened, license is checked and the app is shut down. After hours of checking, I found out that suddenly there's some compatibility problem with Microsoft Net Framework (Windows 10). In particular - clr.dll and mscorlib.ni.dll files. What I've tried to do is: 1. Re-booting PC 2. Re-installing OS 16.5 3. Uninstalling any Windows 10 updates related to Net Framework 4. Repairing Net Framework (doesn't help) 5. Uninstalling and installing Net Framework (seems - not possible in Windows 10) Maybe something else I am forgetting. Has anyone experienced this issue before? Any advice would be appreciated...   Thanks in advance, Best regards, Vadim  

Hello, I am working on a very simple system, consisting of just one lens element (THORLABS 354330-B) from the library with a wavelength of 940 nm. The lens works fine for on axis point source however with of axis points, even as small as 4-6° the performance deteriorates which is understandable due to coma. I tried to stop down the lens which made the results slightly better.  What I want to do is to somehow simulate a target similar to the one that my collimator (TRIOPTICS IMAGE MASTER HR) generates, which is a cross. I want to simulate this because we will very soon try and run a few experiments with the lens on the collimator to measure some variables, mostly MTF. Is there a possibility to simulate a target similar to the equipment that we use for measurements? This will help us understand the results better and make it easier to compare simulation and measured variables. I am attaching the ZEMAX files for reference. Any leads are highly appreciated.   Best regard

Hello, We want to import interferometric measurement into Optic Studio. We have an internal procedure which use a dat file and import into grid sag surface to see the defromation of the ray propagation. This procedure does not work now. I added in attachement zmx file to show that no defromation is observed on image WFE. Is any method to insert directly Mx measurement into Zemax ? Can you maybe proposed an other method to perform WFE analyses from measured surface? Best regards, Alexandre

If I build a micro lens array at sequential mode. is it possible to trace chief ray at a specific lenslet?

The polychromatic RMS wavefront error is calculated based on the following equation: ​​​RMS polychromatic = sqrt(sum ((optical path difference for each ray of the pupil for each wavelength)^2 x weight of the ray)/ sum(weight of the ray)). This means that the polychromatic RMS wavefront error is calculated for all wavelengths at the same time and for all the pupil. For polychromatic results, the reference is the primary wavelength, so the wavefront error is calculated for each wavelength at the same time but with the reference set to the primary wavelength for each wavelength used. This means that for each wavelength, the rays are first propagated until the image plane, then the optical path length of each ray is recorded, then the rays are propagated back to the reference sphere defined by the chief ray at the primary wavelength, then path length of each ray is recorded again during this back-propagation, and finally the back-propagation path length is subtracted from&nb

Hi everyone, I set up a hybrid modell including SC source and focusing lens and NSC microlens array (lenslet array 1) to generate a uniform line (transversaly, perpendicular to beam propagation) in a certain distance. Now I want to optimize the microlens (Toric and aspheric coeff.) parameteres to achive the best line uniformity and smallest line width. What's the procedure to optimize a NSC part in SC merit function? Thx in advance  

Don't worry - there is no need to panic!   If you overwrite your original files, you may retrieve them from C:\ProgramData\Zemax. They are originally placed in this location, and then some are copied over during the installation process; however, the folder by default is hidden, so you will need to change the settings in Windows:

Hi all,   So far, I finished designing a few imaging systems with low f-number for small and large FOVs (collimating lenses). I have to design a much more complicated system, with a larger field of view (48 full FOV), larger entrance pupil diameter (32 mm, although each field fills a much smaller area in the pupil), 17mm EFL, RGB source. Stop similiar to the one in smartphone camra lens (near the detector/display) can't be used. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any reference design to use as a starting point. Do someone familiar with this kind of system?   Attachad here one of the previous system.   Thanks in advance, Nadav

Hello, Huygens PSF is calculated in (X, Y) coordinate space. Are the (X, Y) coordinates in paraxial image space or in geometric distorted image space? How about FFT PSF?   Thanks,       Qiang

When using even asphere surfaces, the diameter of the lens element seems does not accommodate the height of rays, the rays get refracted at outside of lens rim. Any explainations on this?

Hi, I am using Optics Viewer and I found a problem to open a design from a colleague using Zemax.  When opening the file, I have the warning: File contains surfaces not supported by this edition of OpticsViewer.  The surface that has changed from a  previous design that I opened without problem is a a birefringent surface at one lens. I can accept the warning and I see the design but the analysis results are not the same as my colleague is producing.  Is any way there to open correctly a file with this kind of surface? Thanks and best regards

I have a need to apply a User Defined Aperture to a surface in Sequential mode.  This aperture might need to be calculated automatically outside of OpticStudio, or be more complicated than what the .UDA text file format accommodates. For example, I might be able to make a curved-slit aperture out of arcs, but the line-segment approximation that 'OpticStudio internally represents the arc as' might be too crude for my purposes.  Or I might need to calculate an elliptical or other arbitrarily-curved arc segment that is not supported by UDA. Ideally, I could calculate an aperture shape outside of OpticStudio, e.g. in Matlab or Python, and then use ZOS-API to apply this aperture to a surface. Then run the OpticStudio model using this aperture, either in 'Standalone' (Python routine calls OpticStudio) or in 'Inherent' (OpticStudio calls Python routine) mode. I can also see it being useful if somebody wanted to do an optimization in which the shape/size of this externally-calculated

Hello, I have a NSC-file where an object is not hit by a ray though it is clearly in the beam path.  The tunneled object (#26) does not create a hit during the trace. I have checked, all 'ignore' flags i know of. I really do not see why this object is not hit.   Any hint is appreciated 

Hi, I'm using the non-squential component editor and trying to create a window with a central hole using the Annular Axial Lens. The outside semi-diameter is 18mm and the hole semi-diameter is 1.5mm. It's not clear from the manual how the parameters Aperture, Revolution and (possibly) Decentre relate to these diameters. I have tried every combination of the numbers 1.5, 18 and 16.5 (the difference) in those parameters and none produce the desired result. Thanks for any help.

Hello,   Good Evening  We purchased a 'Professional Subscription Network Single Region' a few months ago. One of my colleague is based in Singapore and he activated the license first and did not face this issue. I was trying to activate it on my end today (Pittsburgh, PA) but was unable to do so. Here is a screenshot of the error message.   Please advise at your earliest convenience on how this can be resolved. Kind Regards, Mo

Hi I have just completed the online Optimization course, and I reached the final exam.  There are only three questions, but some of them are 'trick' ones, so I failed it twice.  How do I reset it for another attempt?   Thanks   Jo

Simulating a simple reflective hologram using the hologram surface or the user defined surface with the Kogelnik dll now use the Kogelnik theory to calculate the diffraction efficiency (only for positive propagation distances in front of the hologram). Analyzing the efficiency with the 'Polarization and Surface Physics -> Diffraction efficiency' function works fine. Using the UniversalPlot function with the CODA opperator delivers the same result ONLY if the analyzed configuration is the current one. Choosing any other config in the Universal Plot window results in totally wrong results. I guess that is only a minor issue but it would be nice if you could fix it. 

Hello, I am simulating a multimode grin fiber (100/125) spliced to the SMF-28 fiber. The grin fiber will function as a collimator. I used non-sequential cylinder volume as grin fiber, selected the  grin9.dll and set the index (shown in the attached). But I think the  layout is not correct. If I increase the radius of cylinder volume, at this time it is like a grin lens, i find layout is more accurate. So I wonder why the grin material is not working when I use small size (fiber size) and if this not working, how could I simulate grin fiber and have collimated ray? Thanks

Hello Zemax users. I want to design a reflector in the form of adhesive or tape. There are two rectangular lenses. The distance between the two lenses is 0.2mm or 0.4mm. I want to use adhesive as a reflector material in the space between the lenses. (or I will use reflective tape) The adhesive has a thickness of 0.2mm, a refractive index of 1.7, and a reflectance of 98%. How do I set it up?