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Hello.

I opened this thread because I want to discuss the Overlay Monte Carlo Graphics feature. This might be a long introduction.

Until now, I understood the Overlay Monte Carlo Graphics feature to be purely for overlaying the results of repeated Monte Carlo runs onto open analysis windows—Spot Diagram, RMS vs Field, Diffraction Encircled Energy...etc. I think some of you might agree.

However, the Optics Studio Manual does not provide any description matching the details mentioned above. It explains its usefulness with a vague expression: "The resulting plots are useful for showing the total range of performance for the simulated lenses."

 

 

 

image 1_Optics Studio Manual

 

I found this difficult to interpret, so I actually ran a tolerance analysis and compared the results one by one against the MC_case number.

 

image 2_test system for Overlay MC Graphics (The image is after Overlay MC)
image 3_Each MC case does not fit with each field

 

I have attached two images. As you can see from the pictures, the Field 1 value for lines 3097 and 4395 is 0.011665, which you can understand matches the image attached above. However, the other fields show completely different values.
This result is as if each field in the currently overlaid Spot Diagram was individually picked and brought over from its respective Monte Carlo Case.
Yes, it's as if you are picking cards one by one from a deck to build a Royal Straight Flush based on a specific spade.

I wasn't sure how to accept this fact, so I contacted technical support. Tech support's answer is that the current overlay values are calculated and retrieved from the Merit Function via the RSCE operand.
The question that remains is, what system is being calculated by this RSCE? What specific values within the tolerance range are causing the system to be changed or modified to be expressed this way?
 

Regarding this, I would like to share your opinions, thoughts, and reasoning.

Thank you.


 

  • I initially thought "Overlay Monte Carlo Graphics" overlays the complete results from each individual Monte Carlo run.

  • However, my analysis shows the overlay plot is a image that is seemingly picking individual field data (like spot size) from different MC runs, rather than showing the full results of any single system.

  • Technical support attributed this to the RSCE operand, but The question that remains is, what system, reflecting which specific values from within the tolerance range, this operand is actually calculating to produce this specific composite plot?

Hi ​@GyeongGOn.Bahk . Your original understanding that the function of Overlay Monte Carlo Graphics is ‘purely for overlaying the results of repeated Monte Carlo runs onto open analysis windows’ is correct. So is you have 50 Monte Carlo runs then, for example ray fan plot will have 50 different ray aberration curves overlaid, and a spot diagram would have 50 different spot shapes overlaid. I believe this matches well with description in the section of the Help Files that you included in your post.
In your specific example, I think there may be a few issues that are causing confusion.

  1. When comparing the number in the spot diagram to the RMS spot radius values reported by the tolerancing tool, there is unlikely to be an expect match. This is because the features use different computations, references and sampling method to determine the spot radius. You can find more details here Why is the nominal criterion (RMS spot radius) in the tolerance report different from the estimated RMS spot radius in other features ? | Zemax Community and here Where is the nominal criterion value in my tolerance output coming from? | Zemax Community.
  2. When using Overlay Monte Carlo Graphics with the Standard Spot Diagram only the graphics section of the analysis shows a combined result for all Monte Carlo runs. The results in the text box simply show the data for the final Monte Carlo run (e.g. run 50 of 50). The text results do not represent a combination, summation or average or all Monte Carlo runs. As such you should only use Overlay Monte Carlo Graphics for visual understanding of the system performance.

I hope this helps to clear things up. The RSCE operand is not used directly by the tolerancing tool, although it does use the same, centroid referenced, Gaussian Quadrature sampling to the compute the spot radius. You can see which operands are used by the tolerancing tool by opening a saved Monte Carlo file and looking at the Merit function.

Chris

 

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