What does the order flag do?

How can I create a parabolic trough reflector in OpticsStudio>  I need to collimate the light from a tubular sosurce

Hello,  I would like to conduct a sensitivity analysis on the optical axis orientation of birefringent crystals. I am asking the manufacturer to cut a birefringent crystal so the optical axis is at 45-deg w.r.t the optical axis. x-cosine, y-cosine and z-cosine set the optical axis orientation of the uniaxial optical axis. In my case, x-cosine and z-cosine are set to 0.707 and y-cosine is set to 0. To conduct the sensitivity analysis, I thought I'd slightly change those values but I am not sure that is right. Has anybody done this before? any advice please? Thanks! Driss 

Hi, I'm using a UV LED (LZ1-00UV0R) with a typical flux of 365 nm as well as a lens from LEDiL, specially optimized for this LED (FCA15007_G2-ROSE-UV-SS). The material is polycarbonate, I tried entering 'PC', in Zemax, without success but found that 'POLYCARB' was a material in the miscellaneous catalog. However, I am getting the following error: 'Wavelength 0,36300001 is not within valid range of dispersion formula for glass POLYCARB'. Is there another definition of the polycarbonate material in another catalog that I could use to solve my problem? Thank you for reading, Gwendoline

To Who It May Concern: Sometimes my spot diagram can't find where can show all configurations.  Why? Zheng-Wu (L116837)

There are a growing number of articles in the Freeform optics literature that optimize based upon third order aberrations.  This is a classical approach, but not (?) supported by a Merit Function wizard in Zemax OpticStudio.  I am wondering if there is a specific reason. For example, Ken Moore impressed upon people that optimizing for the spot width in X and spot width in Y was much more computationally efficient that the radial spot size.  This was a great observation and one that required some thought and experiment to discover.  This is incorporated into the wizard for spot size optimization. A wizard to sum up the third order aberration contribution from each surface would be trivial to create (ZOS-API or otherwise).  It would seem to be computationally efficient and a good starting point for optimizing many designs especially given it is the textbook approach to explaining why aberration theory is useful.  Yet it is conspicously absent from OpticStudi

Hello everyone, First of all, I wonder which tag I should use for Lens Data related thread which takes place in setup ribbon in ZOS. Second, which is my main question, I want to give a reshape to my lens as seen below; How can I give this type of cut at the edge for mounting purpose? Thanks in advance, Any help is appreciated

Hi everybody,   I want to model turbulence in my Zemax model but it is unclear to me how exactly to do so. I’ve tried using Grid Phase as some members of your forum have suggested, but have not come up with a valuable solution (I changed shear distance to be -1000 with no effects observed).   I think I’m supposed to have some sort of external .dat file that I’m support to implement within this Grid Phase, but I’ve never heard of an atmospheric modeling program that generates such files. I don’t even know where to import it into, and whether I should be using multiple Grid Phases or not. I want to model the Hufnagel-Valley Cn2 profile in my simulation.   I’ve also tried using Atmospheric, but even with extreme zenith angles, my beams don’t seem to be deflecting.   Can you assist me in making this possible?

Dear Support, I’m simulating, through POP/sequential mode, a system composed mainly by a DFB laser, as the source, and a microlens/mirror and evaluating its coupling to a standard SMF-28 fiber. For my subsequent step, I need to take into account the surface roughness/imperfections of the microlens/mirror caused by the fabrication process. The only parameter that I receive from my manufacturer is the rms of the surface, and I don’t know how I could properly implement it. I hope you could help me. Thank you and looking forward to your answer. Best regards, Andrea

Dear Sir/Madam, Would appreciate your help to provide suggestions about the problem I am facing now with Optics studio. After I ran the Ray Trace of my design and saved a .ZRD file, I tried to read the saved .ZRD file in the NSC 3D layout window.  I have waited for quit a while before the loading process stopped, but the layout window was blank with nothing shown in it. Not sure if it is because my .ZRD file is too big. The size of the .ZRD file is 90GB. If it is so, may I check with you the upper limit of the .ZRD file that can be read by the 3D layout window? Please feel free to let me know if there is any other information that I should include in my post for you to have a better idea about my problem. Thank you very much for your concern! Best Regards, Jing

I just created a toroidal surface, type detector. The raytrace analysis nicely displays the irradiance as false colors in the 3D shaded model view. 'Detector Tools - Save Detector Data' does allow to select the detector, but without extension, no file created. This can be expected from the documentation, but may be altered for convenience (only supported detctors may be allowed to select). Earlier, I created a polygon object, type detector. Again, the 3D shaded model displays the irradiance in false colors. I then created a detector viewer; the Graph display being empty. However, the data of every tesselated triangle pixel is displayed in the Text display. The same procedure does not work with the toroidal surface. The detector is simply not listed in 'Detector Viewer - Settings - Detector'. The difference between both cases is that the second case contains only one detector (the polygon object), whereas the first case contains four detectors, one of which is the toroidal surface. Wh

Hi, I want to draw an off axis parabolic mirror but i need a source (foused point) as input and collimated beam as output. This means the optical axis and parabola axis are perpendicular to each other. I want to tilt the parabola and keep the source fixed. Looking at knowlege base files for reference I can not understand how to decide the order decenter/tilt or tilt/decenter? Also please explain what is the meaning of before surface, after surface. 

Greetings, I recently updated to the most current version of opticstudio(i.e. 21.2), and since then have been unable to access many of the merit function operands. Could this be a file issue that occured while installing the newer version or...? Thank you in advance.

Hello, I am working with a multi-mirror system consisting of beam expanding mirrors, focusing mirrors, active folding mirrors, and windows. At the end of this system is a corner cube retroreflector. I am attempting to do a sensitivity tolerancing analysis where I allow the mirrors in the system to decenter +/- 0.2 mm and tip/tilt +/- 0.2 degrees with the goal being that the retroreflected light remain at its same position where the image plane lies. I am uncertain whether any of the default tolerancing criterion can help with this task. However, I believe either the Physical Optics Propagation Prop Report or Prescription Data may help with the retroreflected beam positon. Is there a way to get this sort of data through a tolerancing analysis? 

Hello, I wish to establish a manufacturing RMS irregularity for a set of mirrors that compose a three mirror telescope. The goal is to achieve the allowable MTF budget reserved for fabrication. In order to do this, I have tolerated the system using the TEZI operand for each mirror surface and balanced the tolerances such that it fulfill the requirement. Although, there are some doubt remaining, and I would be glad if someone could assist me with the answers:1-Is this approach adequate for my purpose?  2-Does the RMS values set on TEZI operand the 'real' values to be achieved? I wonder if is there any multiplication factor related with the interferometic test?3-The frequency range of the irregularity depends on the interval of the Zernike coefficients set. What would be the appropriated value for that interval? Does it depend on the manufacturing processes of the mirrors?  I thank any assistance in advance. 

When a SourceRay file is updated, the OpticStudio model will not automatically re-read this file and update.  How do I force the NCE or the NCERow to re-read the file (without saving and re-opening the model, which takes a long time) -B

Hi,  I am wondering if there is a way to define a custom source based on its field intensity (Ex,Ey) and phase in nonsequential mode similar to the zemax beam file format. The aim of my simulation is to import an near field profile from the FDTD simulation into zemax sp I can analyze the propagation of the field profile in NSC system (scattering medium using Monte Carlo simulation) . Any guidance is appreciated.  

I like the image below.  It shows nice thick lines for the surface and rays: I tried this: and nothing changed in my rendering of 2D Layout (after refreshing, ...). and still nothing changed. Why?

  Hi, so I am modelling a simple RED LED and planar convex lens and trying to get it to focus on a detector. I'm am doing this as an exercise to compare to real world results and gain some understanding. Distance from base of bracket, Collimated (mm) Real Radius Sim Radius 20 3 (inner) 2.6 (inner) 20 4-5 (outer) 8.9 (outer) 80 3.45 - 100 4.9 3.5 120 4.9 3.7 180 5.4 4.7       So the tables above shows comparison of real world observations vs. simulation ones ( I have attached a image of the visual comparisions, sketches only rough and light tends to fade in outer rings).  Both visual and measured. I would assume the difference in measured radius would  be due to inaccuracies/diff

Hello everyone, I am using clear semi-diameter setting as Automatic Solve to fill the aperture up with rays. While I select the solve type as automatic I get an unphysical surface layout (on the right side). With the default seetings I have a view as on the left side. My aim is to correct this unphysical lens layout by retaining the initial focus. I suppose this oddness on the right can easily be solved by a commonly known trick. I am open to your suggestions, Thanks in advance. Önder.                                                                                                                     

Hi, all. I tried to simulate the effect of a beam propagating through a plexiglass with a hole. I tried two configurations. The first one is the beam goes through the plexiglass with a hole directly, and I observe the intensity distribution at a certain distance after the plexiglass. The second is the beam goes through the plexiglass with the hole first, then it goes forward and is reflected by a retroreflector, I observe the effect of the reflected intensity distribution at the place where the source is located. The origional files are attached. For the first case, I can't see the effect of the hole at all, wherever the detector and the plexiglass are placed and however much the hole is , while for the second case the effect of the hole is that obvious. I just can't figure out why it is like that. Someone could give me some tipps? Thank you in advance! All the best,  

Hi,   I try to simulate a system that is inside a medium(n=1.5) and would like to use ideal mirror lenses. I tried to use a paraxial lens and to set the material to mirror, but had to adjust the focal length to a value 1.5 smaller compared to the right. The focal length of an ideal lens is not supposed to change because of the material. What would be the right way to define the surface?   Thanks, Leonid

1. Set a multi-configuration and set the filed as variable to optimize it to the given image height and find out the object heightThis method does not constrain the filed type, so it would not impact the field type selection and the optimization speed.  2.Reverse the system You can find instruction of reversing a system in our KBA: https://support.zemax.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500005575602-How-to-reverse-an-optical-system 3.Universal plot to draw the relation between the object height and the real image heightWith a high density of field and interpolation, this can draw the function between the real image height and the object height 4.Set the filed type as real image height and use the Single Ray Tracing toolThe real image height costs more time to calculate compared to other types. However, this tool can offer many information, such as the Y coordinate on each surface.      

How to model atmospheric turbulence using grid phase in Zemax? Which external software can be used for simulation of atmospheric turbulence?

Hey Zemax Team, Great job on adding arbitrary pivot points to the Tlt/Decenter Elelemts Tool in the new 21.2 release: I completely love this! it is what OS has been needing to make tilting and decentering about an arbitrary point really easy.  I also love that Black-Box files can now be reversed. 21.2 is a really strong update, with lots of useful stuff in it. Well done! - Mark