I have a macro that converts .tif files to .dat files via the CONVERTIMAGETOGRID keyword and that all works like a charm and it creates wagonloads of .dat files.  What I’d like to do next is import those files into a prescription with an established Grid Phase surface via the same macro . . . but I don’t see a ZPL way to do that?Anybody have any ideas?Thanks!

This is a sequential surface DLL that models a realistic slant grating by using RCWA. The parameters for this sequential surface is mostly same to the same model in non-sequential mode, where details are introduced below.https://support.zemax.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500005578722-Simulating-diffraction-efficiency-of-surface-relief-grating-using-the-RCWA-methodThe main difference to its equivalence in non-sequential mode is only one diffraction order is allowed in sequential mode. If simulation of multiple orders is desired, users can use multi-configs to work it around.The DLL can be downloaded by downloading and opening the attached ZAR file. The corresponding DLL will be automatically extracted to the folder \Document\Zemax\DLL\Surfaces\Note this DLL is locked to only Premium and Enterprise in Ansys Zemax OpticStudio. Standard and Professional license editios are not allowed. Legacy Zemax OpticStudio is not allowed either. Date Version OpticStudio Version Comment 2023/04/03 1.

I am trying to run a boilerplate script to communicate with ZOS-API using MATLAB but I run into some errors during initialization. The path returned by winqueryreg() is valid and added to the Matlab path, but the Helper DLL doesn’t load correctly. Why might be the reason for this error?  Thanks!

Hello everyone, I just wanted to share some work I’ve been doing today with adding easing to animations for OpticStudio.In March 2021, Dan Hill published his fine article: How do I create presentation quality graphics and animations? At the end of the article, Dan demonstrates how to produce a 360 degree animated GIF using ZPL.However, one may want to rotate an object over a smaller angular range, and go back and forth from the original position. If you were to do so naively using Dan’s approach, every frame would be at a fixed angular position from the previous one, and you would obtain a “linear” GIF. However, you can obtain a slightly different result if you apply an easing function. There’s an outstanding website, called https://easings.net/, that demonstrates how to make use of such easing functions and the website also includes the formulas necessary to calculate these easing functions.Let me demonstrate the result with an example first, and then show you the workflow I used.I wa

This Zemax User-Extension helps set-up or check a system with fibers or lasers in OpticStudio. There are two tabs: one to set-up correctly the System Explorer given the fiber values and a second tab to check that a system has been set-up correctly. Values are also given for POP.  Click here to download Date Version OpticStudio Version Comment 2020-05-13 1.0 - Creation  

I have surfaces near the focus of an aberrated system and I’m seeing that the Clear Semi-Diameter is being automatically set much smaller than the actual beam size. I know that this is because the surface is in a caustic region and I can set a fixed value rather than leave it as automatic. I’d like to have another option, to size it based on something other than the marginal ray height at the surface. What options do I have?

I will share examples of using ZPLM as a workaround to solve some problems that I see/ you may experience in my daily support 😀.  

Hello,Python's latest version 3.10 was released a few days back. Our ZOSAPI- Python User updated Python's older version to 3.10 which is not recommendable for Python Interactive and Standalone ZOSAPI -Python. The Pythonnet library which connects CLR of ZOS API dll to Python has not been updated for Python 3.10. So, if you find customers using Python 3.10 or Python 3.9. It would be better to use python 3.7 or Python3.8. As Pythonnet works well with these versions.As you can see after installing Pythonnet getting Attribute error Addrefrence.Attribute ErrorThanksSahil

How do I set a field position (say field coordinate X) to a variable using ZOS-API in Python?I am accessing the Fields information usingFields = TheSystem.SystemData.FieldsIt seems like the methods within the Fields object are slightly different to the MCE or LDE editors, as I can get a single field doing Fields.GetField(2) but I cannot find a method like SetSolveData(solve), which would work in the MCE.Any idea on how to set a field coordinate to a variable?Thanks.

In Non-sequential mode, there is no feature to make the detector result iso-line. Therefore, if ZOS-API functions such as Python or Matlab are used, iso-line mapping is possible using detector data. This is where the first community post about iso-line comes from Displaying IsoLux Lines | Zemax Community#Define detector object numberdetnum=3# get number of pixels in X, Ydims_bool_return, X_detectorDims, Y_detectorDims = TheNCE.GetDetectorDimensions(detnum, 0, 0)# Create array to store flux data for each pixelpix = []length = pix.__len__()while pix.__len__() < X_detectorDims * Y_detectorDims: # loop through pixels, store value in pix length += 1 pix_bool, value = TheNCE.GetDetectorData(detnum, length, 1, 0) pix.append(value)# get size of the detectorXlength = TheNCE.GetObjectAt(detnum).GetObjectCell(ZOSAPI.Editors.NCE.ObjectColumn.Par1).DoubleValueYlength = TheNCE.GetObjectAt(detnum).GetObjectCell(ZOSAPI.Editors.NCE.ObjectColumn.Par2).DoubleValue# make a pixel array to 2D d

Hi guys,Here is another set of task focus on Energy on a detector.  Compute and plot the EOD of a system over a defocus range for the specified field points Shift an optical element over a range of axial shifts and compare the change in EOD Compute and plot the percent EOD (energy on detector) over a linear field. Compute and plot the EOD (energy on detector) for a range of focus shifts Compute and plot the change in EOD (encircled or ensquared energy on a detector) over the 2D rectangular FOV Plot the change in EOD (encircled or ensquared energy on a detector) times the normalized PSA over the FOV. Assumes that the macros EOD_VS_FOV and VIG_VS_FOV have been run. Thank you!

Hi guys,Task 3 Plot the RMS spot size vs. through-focus position. Compute and plot the RMS value of geometric spot size, wavefront error, or strehl ratio over a linear field. Compute and plot the RMS value of geometric spot size, wavefront error, or strehl ratio vs focus position. Compute and plot the RMS value of geometric spot size, wavefront error, or strehl ratio over the two-dimensional FOV Compute and plot the RMS value of geometric spot size, wavefront error, or strehl ratio vs wavelength. Compute and plot the RMS WFE over the FOV. Plot spot diagrams over the 2D rectangular or circular field of view. The field of view is assumed to be centered on-axis. Macro that defines a function that returns the RMS Spot Size at any surface in your system. Can be used to constrain the spot size during optimization Thank you!

Hi guys,I decided to section the ZPL task to avoid confusion because I have about 100 of these macros to write. Compute and plot MTF, plotting all fields in one plot (to a maximum of 20 fields). Compute and plot the MTF over a linear field for a specified set of spatial frequencies. Compute the MTF over the field of regard (FOR) for a specified spatial frequency and a specified field point Compute and plot the radial, tangential, or average of radial and tangential MTF over the FOV for a specified spatial frequency Compute the MTF at a given spatial frequency vs. the change in a specified lens parameter. Compute the MTF at a given spatial frequency vs. the change in a specified lens parameter. The parameter minimum and maximum values may be entered as actual values or as deltas. Plot the two-dimensional MTF for the specified field points, zoom positions, and through-focus positions. Plot the optical MTF cascaded with the detector MTF to get the combined MTF for the system

Hi,I am trying to use a Matlab script to trace rays and read only the rays that hit my detector after a ghost reflection.I have been trying to save the rays and use a filter to select only the ones I want. Unfortunately, I am not able to read the detector using the ray database. Does anybody have a tip to solve this issue?Thanks,Daniel

Dear all,I have a WinForm/WPF project where I want to use ZOS-API.The console application from ray tracing example file works fine. However, when I added ZOS references (ZOSAPI, ZOSAPI_Interfaces, ZOSAPI_Nethelper) to the WinForm project (compiled for x64), I got a null reference, like so:I’ve made minimum modifications to the original example of the ray tracing program. Basically, I just wrapped it into a separate class and removed the Main method, because the WinForm project already has an entry point.The program could be succesfully initialized, which means ZOSAPI references linked to the project:Found OpticStudio at: c:\program files\zemax opticstudioHowever, after new connection created, “TheApplication” reference is null:IZOSAPI_Application TheApplication = TheConnection.CreateNewApplication();I appreciate it if anyone knows the cause of this null reference. Regards,Mykyta

Hello. I am currently trying to extract the POP output beam data with the ZOS API with not much luck. I would like to pull the data from the POP itself rather than the mfe since i have noticed that the mfe will not update POPD operand values with the input POP settings from an astigmatic gaussian POP. It seems that in the articles I have looked that the the GetResults() from POP will give you the header value and the datagrid pixel value. Since I am trying to get the Raleigh Range, Waist Location, and Waist size data of my beam at the out put place I thought that maybe pulling the data from HeaderData.Lines[7] would work since the beam data is in the line after the irradiance data (line 6t), but when I try this I get an error saying that 7 is past the limit of lines, so I am not sure where to pull this data? I am also noticing that there is a slight bug in the POP data where if propagating X and Y separately, like in my case, it will only output pilot beam data for just x vs for x and

It is common for illumination design to have complex shapes which are difficult to describe by a mathematical formula. For example, custom collimators, waveguides, reflectors, and so on could be represented by freeform curves. When such optical components are designed in a CAD program, we can't optimize their shape in Zemax after importing CAD files.To overcome this issue, I provide an example of how to convert CAD data of a TIR lens into a parametric surface and optimize it for light collimation.In this example I’m using TIR lens. It consists of TIR surface and refractive surface, as shown below.Reference: Pencil of RaysFirst, we will fit TIR surface.Zemax has a Freeform Z object, which is formed by drawing a cubic spline curve through a series of points in the YZ plane:Our target is to retrieve these YZ pairs from a solid model cross-section via cubic spline interpolation. Spline interpolation can be done in python using scipy.interpolate.CubicSpline(Z,Y):Cubic Spline InterpolationAf

Hello everyone,In the full-field aberration map, the sampling value of the field of view has a maximum value of 20. When I want to find the minimum point of an aberration, I often cannot get it precisely because of the lack of precision.I've read the question and the response below, and I am confused that if we use the ZERN operand to read the zernike coefficient value, then a lot of fields need to be setby using zosapi to calculate in matlab. After trying, I found that the fields  can only be set around 2000 at most, and the speed is slow. So I want to know how to get the aberration of any field point, and if  there exsits an interface like this, the optimization can be done to find the exact position of the minimum value. 

Hello. I’m interested in running optimization targeting to get a specific beam shape on image. The beam is generated using POP Gaussian angle. The analysis i want to run requires a macro code. For that I’m going to use the ZPLM operand. My question is how do I read POP analysis Text data tab with the ZPL? I want to process the data and to return the macro result to the merit function ThanksRaphael  

GetAllDetectorData() and GetAllDetectorDataSafe() are both methods that can be used to retrieve detector data for a specified detector object. The main difference between the two methods is that GetAllDetectorDataSafe() returns a two-dimensional array of double values double[,] that contains all the detector data for the detector object, while GetAllDetectorData() returns a boolean value that indicates whether the detector data was retrieved successfully, and one-dimensional array double[] . GetAllDetectorDataSafe() does not require the input of numPixels and detectorData, whereas GetAllDetectorData() requires these parameters in addition to (detector) ObjectNumber and Data(type).Check the examples to use the two methods: For python: TheNCE = TheSystem.NCEDetObj = 4obj = TheSystem.NCE.GetObjectAt(DetObj);numXPixels = obj.ObjectData.NumberXPixels;numYPixels = obj.ObjectData.NumberYPixels;DetRectangleData_FluxArea = TheSystem.NCE.GetAllDetectorDataSafe(4, 1)for x in range(numXPixels):

Dear support team, it seems that a 'Print' statement  in ZPL is suppressed during the script is running. Then at the end of the script all print statements are executed at once. I guess, this is a kind of optimisation? However, I am running large scripts and I would like to see the progress in the command window . So I would like the print statement to react directly when it is called. Is this possible?    Thank you,       Christof.

To compute the ABCD matrix, OpticStudio traces rays over a very small region centered upon the reference field position. Usually, this is the center of the field of view. OpticStudio allows selection of which field position to use for reference.By default, OpticStudio sets the corner of the field grid in object space to be at the maximum radial field distance. Because object height is linear with the tangent of the field angle, the full width of the field when angles are used to define the field is given byWhere θr is the maximum radial field angle at the corner of the field.The ray coordinates in image space for the very small field of view are used to determine the ABCD matrix components. The use of an ABCD matrix allows for coordinate rotations. If the image surface is rotated, such that a y object coordinate images to both an x and a y image coordinate, the ABCD matrix will automatically account for the rotation. The grid distortion plot shows the linear grid, and then marks the ac

I am trying to view/export the zernike data of my system using Matlab and the API. Currently my code reads: And I don't know what to do from here. The data comes to Matlab in an IAR file type, and I don't know how to extract it.    Thanks, Stephen Chapman

I started modifying the boilerplate code included on this page: https://support.zemax.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500005576882 Looking through the ZOS-API help from the Programming Tab in OpticStudio I can tell that there are some differences between the way the code is implemented in the .dll versus the way it is described in the help files. How do I access the API for the methods and classes inside the .dll file? 

I am following the example (CSharpStandalone_04_pull_data_from_FFTMTF.cs) to get FFT MTF data like below; newWin.ApplyAndWaitForCompletion();IAR_ newWin_Results = newWin.GetResults();It works fine in my computer. But the same copy returns ‘null results’ from other’s computer.No idea where I should look into for debugging.Appreciate your kind advice.