In the Help file, we can find the following description.The Setup Tab > System Group (the Setup Tab) > System Explorer > Polarization (System Explorer) > Defining the Initial Polarization These can be visulzied as below. The pythone code to draw is this provded for reference.Enjoy!

Hey Zemax team,You know I love you guys dearly, but the 22.2 OpticStudio release seems awfully light. Two features only, one of which was in the 22.1 release?Looking forward to a bumper 22.3 release!Mark

This thread is dedicated to the upcoming webinar: Using and Modifying CREO Parts with OpticsBuilder. Any questions received during the webinar will be responded to as a reply on this thread. Feel free to post your own questions! The speaker will be notified and will respond as long as the thread is still open.Be sure to subscribe to this thread if you want to see additional discussion regarding this webinar topic. The thread will be open to new replies through Friday, June 3rd. [The webinar has concluded.] Webinar detailsDate: Thursday, May 26thTime: 6:00 - 7:00 AM PDT | 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PDTPresenter: Flurin Herren, Application Engineer II at Ansys ZemaxAbstract: In an optomechanical workflow it is quite common that a system needs to be edited during the design process due to added information or changing circumstances. At certain stages of a workflow only specific things can be edited. This requires a tool that can edit more than one specific group of properties at a time. OpticsBu

This thread will be used to collect questions before the webinar, and to answer any questions we received during the webinar. Feel free to post your questions! Be sure to subscribe to this thread if you want to see additional discussion regarding this topic. The thread will be open to comments through Friday, May 27th. [The event has concluded] Date: Thursday, May 19thTime: 6:00am PST & 11:00am PSTPresenters:Shin-Sung Kim, Manager Application Engineering Csilla Timar-Fulep, Senior Application EngineerAbstract: In this webinar, we will examine how the portfolio of Ansys Optics tools offers a complete workflow for the design of metasurfaces, or metalenses. These revolutionary ultra-thin optical components can be used to manipulate light in the visible and IR range for many applications, including smartphone cameras, AR/MR displays, 3D sensing and face recognition. Because of the sub-wavelength nature of metasurfaces, it is critical to use a combination of electromagnetic field solver

This thread is dedicated to today’s webinar: OpticsBuilder for Creo Product Tour. Any questions received during the webinar will be responded to as a reply on this thread. Feel free to post your own questions! The speaker will be notified and will respond as long as the thread is still open.Be sure to subscribe to this thread if you want to see additional discussion regarding this webinar topic. The thread will be open to new replies until Thursday, May 17. Webinar detailsDate: Thursday, May 12thTime: 6:00am & 11:00am PDTPresenter: Lisa Clauson, Senior Product Manager at Ansys ZemaxAbstract: Join Lisa Clauson, Ansys Zemax Senior Product Manager, as she demonstrates how to simulate the impact of mechanical designs on optical performance with Ansys Zemax OpticsBuilder, a certified PTC technology partner. OpticsBuilder enables better communication and eliminates inefficiencies in the optical design process between optical engineers and CAD users. OpticsBuilder addresses all issues ass

This post shows some related information about Objects as Detectors.

Just in case anyone is wondering, I updated my Windows 10 machine to Windows 11 and everything worked exactly as it should. The previously installed version of OS ran normally and the installation of the latest version also worked fine. Good old Microsoft!There is no difference in performance in any app as far as I can see. The major difference in 11 seems to be a light refresh of the GUI. Rounded corners on app windows and the task bar is centered rather than left justified by default. Major steps forward. But good news, no hair was pulled out over this upgrade!Mark 

This thread is dedicated to the upcoming webinar: Laser Applications with Ansys Zemax. Any questions received during the webinar will be responded to as a reply on this thread. Feel free to post your own questions! The speaker will be notified and will respond as long as the thread is still open.Be sure to subscribe to this thread if you want to see additional discussion regarding this webinar topic. The thread will be open to new replies until Friday, May 6th. Webinar detailsRegister here: [The webinar has concluded]Date: Thursday, April 28thTime: 6:00 - 6:30 AM PDT | 11:00 - 11:30 AM PDTPresenter: Flurin Herren, Application Engineer II at Ansys ZemaxAbstract: Laser beam propagation requires unique considerations when setting up models in optical design software. OpticStudio has a wide range of tools and capabilities for modeling laser applications. This webinar demonstrates various laser applications and components that can be simulated using OpticStudio.

       Tech Tip Tuesday 5-10-22 Photolithography; a workflow with STAR & Fluent Photolithography can be used to pattern wafers for semiconductor applications today, but it’s history goes back a lot further than that. Around the time that Joseph Niepce a French inventor created the halftone process for photography, two French printers Alfred Lemercier and Alphonse Poitevin began putting it to use experimenting with photolithography. The technique originally involved a stone plate with water and light, which is where the name comes from, it is Greek, photo = litho, and graphy = stone. The technique of photolithography would be used for engraving from the 1800’s through the 1900’s. By the 1950’s Jay Lathrop and James Nall who were working for the military at a group that would later become part of the ARL (Army Research Laboratory) would use the technique to miniaturize electronic circuits, giving us the first application of how we use it with semiconductors today.The process used for

This thread will be used to collect questions before the webinar, and to answer any questions we received during the webinar. Feel free to post your questions! Be sure to subscribe to this thread if you want to see additional discussion regarding this topic. The thread will be open to comments until Thursday, May12th.  Webinar details:[The webinar has concluded]Date: Thursday, May 5thTime: 6:00am PST & 11:00am PSTPresenters:Hui Chen, Senior Application Engineer Taylor Robertson, Senior Application EngineerAbstract: Complex optical systems require coupling simulation techniques across multiple length scales for accurate design and tolerancing. Extracting the light from nanoscale emissive structures in illumination systems, or propagating light through a mixture of guided and free space components are just a few examples.Ray tracing approximations break down near the dimension of the wavelength, and electromagnetic approaches are too expensive for larger devices. Traditional methods

This thread is dedicated to today’s webinar: The Hidden Cost of CAD Time. Any questions received during the webinar will be responded to as a reply on this thread. Feel free to post your own questions! The speaker will be notified and will respond as long as the thread is still open.Be sure to subscribe to this thread if you want to see additional discussion regarding this webinar topic. The thread will be open to new replies until Friday, April 29th. Webinar detailsDate: Thursday, April 21stTime: 6:00am & 11:00am PDTPresenter: Lisa Clauson, Senior Product Manager at Ansys ZemaxAbstract: Join Lisa Clauson, Ansys Zemax Senior Product Manager, as she explores the hidden costs of traditional workflows that bring optical designs to a finished product. Most optical design teams have learned to accept their current workflow inefficiencies as the cost of doing business. Few realize the true costs of maintaining status quo when new technology is available to automate tedious tasks, improve

This thread is dedicated to the upcoming webinar: Using Skew Rays to Model Laser Beams. Any questions received during the webinar will be responded to as a reply on this thread. Feel free to post your own questions! The speaker will be notified and will respond as long as the thread is still open.Be sure to subscribe to this thread if you want to see additional discussion regarding this webinar topic. The thread will be open to new replies until Friday, April 22nd.  Webinar detailsRegister here: [The webinar has concluded.]Date: Thursday, April 14th. Time: 6:00 - 6:35 AM PDT, and 11:00 - 11:35 AM PDTPresenter: Paul Colbourne, Senior Optical Designer at LumentumAbstract:In this webinar, Lumentum’s Paul Colbourne will describe how to use skew rays to model Gaussian beam propagation in OpticStudio. Skew rays are an efficient and accurate representation of Gaussian beams and can be used to quickly optimize for best focus or to minimize aberrations. Paul will demonstrate how to set up User-

Apologies for butting into the normal optical engineering content. On Sunday 22nd May 2022, I am joining The Distinguished Gentleman's Ride with fellow men and women across the globe to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer and men's mental health. Men die on average 6 years earlier than women and for largely preventable reasons. The number of men that are suffering is growing, and we need to do something about that.I would be very grateful if you would be willing to sponsor me by a small amount. Yes, I know you're sponsoring me to ride a motorcycle around San Diego, and that's not the hardest gig in the world. But raising awareness of both prostate cancer and suicide prevention is surely a good thing, huh? Sponsor me a few bucks here:https://www.gentlemansride.com/fundraiser/MarkNicholson153916

I got three different MTF distributions. Why they are different and how can we eliminate the difference? Which one shall I trust?For example, when I set the entrance pupil diameter to 1 for  \Zemax\Samples\Short course\Optical System Design Using OpticStudio\sc_dbga1.zmx I got this: 

Top Tip Tuesday Ansys Mechanical and OpticStudio STAR ModuleAs many know, the OpticStudio STAR module has always been FEA agnostic. Integration with other Ansys tools has lead to a workflow that streamlines the process and allows greater fidelity.Design, optimize and perform tolerancing as you typically would in OpticStudio. Build CAD and other mechanical components, including those interacting with optics. Note; OpticsBuilder, SPEOS, SpaceClaim, Mechanical, Discovery and other tools can help facilitate this need depending on the specific case.  Export the design for FEA analysis. Bring the components from OpticStudio and CAD into Ansys Mechanical, materials and initial conditions can also be imported.It is possible to leverage WorkBench, bringing in any physics that are necessary, Fluent, Mechanical, Icepack, etc. What if studies are made easy with WorkBench as variables are parametrized and can be passed between programs.Define the mesh and apply mesh control with a finer mesh in are

Yes, you can copy rows from an editor in one file and paste them into the editor of another file through the API. As an example, I will paste the Multi-Configuration Editor operands from one file to a blank Multi-Configuration Editor in another file using the Matlab ZOS-API. Note that this can be done with all types of editors and also in python/C#/C++. The trick here is defining both the PrimarySystem and also the second system TheSystem2. TheSystem = TheApplication.PrimarySystem; TheSystem2 = TheApplication.CreateNewSystem(ZOSAPI.SystemType.Sequential); Next you will need to load up the file you want to copy from and define both Multi-Configuartion Editors. sampleDir = TheApplication.SamplesDir; testFile = System.String.Concat(sampleDir, '\API\Matlab\MCE file 1.zmx'); TheSystem.LoadFile(testFile,false); TheMCE = TheSystem.MCE; TheMCE2 = TheSystem2.MCE; Note that I am opening a file named 'MCE file 1.zmx' that I already have saved in my samples folder under \API\M

This thread will be used to collect questions before the webinar, and to answer any questions we received during the webinar. Feel free to post your questions! Be sure to subscribe to this thread if you want to see additional discussion regarding this topic. The thread will be open to comments until Thursday, March 31st.  Webinar details:Register here: [The event has concluded]Date: Thursday, March 24thTime: 6:00am PST & 11:00am PSTPresenters:Tom Pickering, Manager Product Management for Ansys ZemaxJames Pond, Principle Product Manager for Ansys Lumerical Abstract: Optical design has long been constrained by the lack of being able to design the optics and photonic components in one workflow. This webinar explores how the new connection between Ansys Zemax and Ansys Lumerical accelerates optical design time today and in the future. We will showcase some example workflows that combine your optical simulations with other Ansys solutions such as Ansys Speos and Ansys optiSLang to deliv

I had a hard time in controlling the aspherical surface shape on a design found by the hammer optimization (over night, you get it. It’s a better practice to add some constrains before we optimize instead of after the optimization.) for my project. I did some investigation and want to share with you some methods and tools that I found quite useful.We can use the Q type to optimize, then convert to even asphere if needed for certain reasons. The tool in Analysis->PAL/Freeform→ Power Pupil/Field Map may help, similarly the surface sag cross section. Following the second one, we can control these by using POWF and POWP For mold glass we need something close to sphere, this can be controlled by BFSD The SDRV and the SCUR can be applied to optimize the plastic lenses to have the desired shapeI may miss some useful tools. Certain methods may not work for certain cases. I would like to know what you think about these methods and do you have other ways to achieve this?

The details of the webinar are below! This thread will be used to collect questions before the webinar, and to answer any questions we received during the webinar. Feel free to post your questions! Be sure to subscribe to this thread if you want to see additional discussion regarding this topic. The thread will be open to comments for a limited time.  Webinar details:Register here: [The event had concluded.]Date: Thursday, February 24thTime: 6:00am PST & 11:00am PSTPresenters:@Jordan.Teich, Application Engineer II @Flurin Herren, Application Engineer II @Matthias.Schlich, R&D Engineer IIAbstract: CubeSats are a class of nanosatellite that are designed to operate within standardized dimensions of 1U cubes (10 cm x 10cm x 10cm). They can vary in size from 1U to 6U payloads. In the aerospace market, CubeSats have emerged as a lower cost solution for space-based optical systems. To design a CubeSat system, a workflow needs to be defined for developing the optical design, opto-mecha

This thread will be used to collect questions before the webinar, and to answer any questions we received during the webinar. Feel free to post your questions! Be sure to subscribe to this thread if you want to see additional discussion regarding this topic. The thread will be open to comments until Thursday, March 17th.  Webinar details:Register here: [The event has concluded]Date: Thursday, March 10thTime: 6:00am PST & 11:00am PSTPresenter: Bob Householder, Senior Product Sales ManagerAbstract: Micro-optics for medical devices carry a higher burden than commercial or industrial applications where sterilization, compliance and materials play a greater role.  In this talk, a generic set of opto-mechanical requirements will be studied to show the process of optical form and design through opto-mechanics, tolerance analysis and production considerations.  This practical approach will reveal the top lens design forms and build on the initial design to construct an opto-mechanical sub-

To define an acceptance angle, you may use filter strings or define a table coating. For the first one, you can use the following filter strings: The Setup Tab > Editors Group (Setup Tab) > Non-sequential Component Editor > Non-sequential Overview > The Filter String   So for example, if you want to select only rays incident at an angle of less than 10 (cos(10) = 0.984808) degrees on your detector (Object 2 in this case) whose normal vector points along local +z, the filter string would be: X_NGT(2, 0.984808) When running the ray trace, you can define this filter and save the ray data: this means that only if the ray passes the filter, it will be saved:   After that, you can use this ray database for your analysis. The second possibility would be define a table coating and apply it in an object placed in front of the detector. With this coating format the transmission and reflection may be defined as a function of incident angle and wavelength. To read a compl

Tech Tip Tuesday 3/15/22Robotic surgery is becoming increasingly prevalent within the medical field, and optics plays an important role within these devices. There are a few areas that optics touch in the medical field with respect to robotic surgery. Other articles and posts have touched on the use of endoscopic cameras and machine learning. Photoluminescence is another topic in this field in the form of phosphorescence and fluorescence modeling to simulate the use of contrast dyes to highlight cavities or vessels. There are also fiber and laser applications for use with both scalpel and cauterization, which will be examined in other articles. This also ties back to other topics we have written on, including tissue modeling. We will now take our human tissue model a step further with the inclusion of blood vessels and contrast dye, which can help highlight the blood vessels or other cavities in the flesh.   Revisiting our simple tissue model from last month, you may recall that we had

Optimization is extremely important in a computer-aided design. However, it's never as easy as just a click on a button. We usually need to carefully set up the variable and merit function. While there are no a general rules to follow for all systems, there are still some useful trick to follow for most of common cases. Here I'm sharing some from my experience. If you put yours in reply, I will also update this thread.:) [Michael Cheng] 1. Keep this in mind: Always check and consider whether a variable is really required to be a variable. * If the variable won't changing system performance much, turn off it first. You can turn it on at final stage for a fine tune. A typical case is the thickness of a lens. In many cases, they contribute much less than those AIR thicknesses in the system. * Before careful that, if you have a redundant variable, for example Radius on an isolated STOP, the optimizer may be confused and just cannot work well. * If during optimization, a variable just

To obtain POP image on shaded view, you can: Open the POP settings to save the .ZBF file at all surfaces, please make sure that the .zbf file you save has the same name as the .zmx   2. Select the surface you want to show, go to the physical optics-> check draw fiber coupling on shaded model 3. Open shaded model plot  

In Q3 2021, Zemax partnered with the Optica Foundation to identify and support exceptional optics-focused students in emerging economies.  I’m very excited to have these individuals join our ranks within the Zemax user community, and I hope that everyone will join me in welcoming and mentoring them.Samuel ( @sizapatav23 )  - Jesus ( @cansecodiaz ) - Naresh ( @Naresh.Kumar ) - Anda-Maria ( @Maria T ) - Adewale ( @adewale ) - Melvin ( @Melvin.James ) For the students, please reply on this thread to tell the community a bit about yourself! I think we’d all like to know…Degree you’re pursuing Your academic institution What are your passions within the field of optics? What do you hope to study or learn with your OpticStudio software? Is there anything you’d like to ask of the community members?