Hi, The Attach Files is my problem. Why i can't Connect to ZEMAX with microsoft excel . Can you teach me how to Connect to ZEMAX. Thank you!

Hello,  is it possible to export dxf file from api? If so, How? Thank you.

How can i get through focus mtf data with zpl ?

As stated in the title I need to compile my own DLLs for my system. I don't have access to Visual studio or Visual Studio community, and in general, I try to work as much as possible with open source solutions. Can somebody help me to set up an environment to compile a DLL with free and open source IDE and compiler? Ideally Visual Studio Code. I'm working on Windows 10 x64.

Hello comunity,  I'm developing a C# standalone application and I want to know if it is possible and how to get access to the event handlers, something like 'primarySystem.Saved'; 'primarySystem.Opened' and so on in order to do other operations like update UI or get data.  Thank you in advance.  Regards

Hi, The tutorial on 'Simulating diffraction efficiency of surface-relief grating using the RCWA method' assumes a unit cell comprising of one period with linear grating of fixed duty cycle. I am wondering if anyone knows if we can simulate 1. curved diffraction grating and/or 2. diffraction grating with a chirp (i.e assume  a super cell comprising of multiple unit cells with varying period and fill factor)?  Thanks, Arvinder

Hello! Is there a shortcut to be able to comment out entire blocks of code at once? 

I am currently tyring to run a macro from the command line of my computer. The macro includes the command : >>> OUTPUT 'exampleFile', APPEND This is used to create an output txt file by the name of 'exampleFile.' Now, when I run this macro through the command line, no file is generated. But, when this macro is run through optic studio, there is a file that is generated named exampleFile. I don't understand why this step is ignored when the macro is used through the command line?  

Zemax has the wonderful ability to add user-defined surfaces and objects, but they have to be compiled by the user into a dll. With the Community version of Visual Studio 2019, does anybody know (a) which components of Visual Studio need to be installed, (b) what settings are needed in order to “Attach to Process…” in order to debug, and (c) what settings are needed to compile routines correctly. The background here is that the user has to look through a set of examples to work out how to do anything, and these are mostly in C, probably from 20 years ago. There are 2 very useful articles about how to compile a dll, and debug a dll, but they are for C++, with no explanation about when and why C++ is needed. Some VS2017 compiler settings are given, but a lot of others are not mentioned, and there is no information about how to install Visual Studio. The ability to debug a file is phenomenal, but they do not attach with VS2017 and VS2019, and there is a message that &ld

Hi all, I am currently doing an optics project with some mechanical simulations. We are trying to simulate the surface deformation with mechanical design software. Then input the data to ZEMAX. If I have a sag data like the attached, could I input these data to get the surface in ZEMAX? Including radius of curvature and aspherical coefficients. Thank you, Raymond

Hi all, I'm working with Matlab and trying to use the ModifySettings on a cfg file to update a Physical Optics Propagation analysis but continue to encounter an error. This is my setup so far:   TheSystem = TheApplication.PrimarySystem; testFile = System.String.Concat('\\...\','myFile.zmx'); %the '...' is my directory TheSystem.LoadFile(testFile,false); pop = TheSystem.Analyses.New_Analysis(ZOSAPI.Analysis.AnalysisIDM.PhysicalOpticsPropagation); pop.Terminate(); pop.WaitForCompletion(); pop_setting = pop.GetSettings(); cfg = System.String.Concat('\\...\','myCFG.cfg'); pop_setting.LoadFrom(cfg); pop_setting.ModifySettings(cfg, 'POP_PARAM1', 0.010) %Beam Waist in X.    This last line is where I get my error: 'No method 'ModifySettings' with matching signature found for class 'ZemaxUI.ZOSAPI.Analysis.AS_Default'.' The idea is to run a number of POP analyses for different beam wai

I am trying to generate a compound lens with front and back surfaces made up of two Biconic Zernike surfaces.  One of the aspheric parameters on the front biconic surface is generated by a ZPL macro.  When building this model, the compound lens ignores the value provided by the ZPL solve, treating it as it were zero.  Is there any way to pass the surface generated by the macro solve to the compound lens without having it be ignored?

Hi, Is there a way to simulate a cylindrical lens (curve in X-Z plane) with a diffraction grating on the cylindrical surface that varies as a function of X in OpticStudio? Or would I have to write a custom DLL for simulate this? Thanks, Ben

Hi, There is a field 'Data File' in the GUI when Source File is selected as the source (in non-sequential mode). How can I load this file using the ZOS-API (NET connection in Python)? I create a ray file using Python in the right path (\ZEMAX\Objects\Sources\Source Files) I found the tutorial for navigating the API documentation very useful, unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to do this. Is there a way to turn my txt file to binary through the API? And could I export the image from a detector directly using the API?   Thank you!

Hello, I have a test bench with a scanning laser passing through an optical setup. I have the firing pattern of this laser and I wanna know what will be the impact of the laser firing pattern miss the target. The idea is to do a tolerance analysis for each angle of the scanning but there are a lot of angles to do this tolerancing. How can I do a tolerance analysis for a big set of tilts around X and Y? Thank you, Narciso Soares

In ZOS-API what functions do we use to open an archive file and select the same options as the interface?

I would like to create a new text file from inside of a ZPL macro for saving data while the macro runs.  I see the OPEN command, but it requires the file to already be created.  I do not see any keyword for creating the new file.  Is there a way to create new files from inside of a running Macro?   Thanks Chris Buchholz

Hi, I have a model where I use dll defined scattering. I need to be able to define the wavelength shift in the wavelength shift box using the ZOS-API syntax, but I haven't found an example or the way this is done in the ZOS-API Help. Could you please help me?   Thank you in advance.

Hello. I guess my question is fairly straight forward. However, I am not very used to any optimization procedures, so any help will be appreciated. Assuming I have a source and a detector, and some surfaces inbetween in a non-sequential setting. I need to write a merit funtion that maximizes flux on the detector - but only for rays hitting a specific surface in between source and detector. While this is easily done by filter strings in a simple detector view, I was unsure on how to implement this in the optimization. Therefore Zemax provided some help a while ago in form of this ZPLM operand detector = PVHX() clear = NSDD(1,0,0,0) NSTR 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 'Test.ZRD', 'H4' ZRDPLAYBACK 'Test.ZRD', 1, detector, 1 X = NSDD(1, detector, -3, 0) OPTRETURN 0, X So I specify my detector in H(x) and then clear all detectors, run a raytrace with the filter string applied (in this case hit surface 4) and point it back to the detector. So now this returns the rays hitting the detector under con

I am a optical design engineer at Hubbell India looking for online based webinar or training to get in to the advanced design and analysis of lightig illumination. 

Hi, Would appreciate your help with evaluating 2D profile of BINARY2 surface (Diffractive Lens). I know Optic-studio provides a cross section (1D) profile  of this kind of surface, but I need 2D sag. Does anyone has a Matlab file or macro getting the BINARY 2 parameters (coefficients ect.) and evaluating 2D surface sag ? Thanks in Advance, Tali       

In the ZOS-API example, when they tilt/decenter a system, they do it by changing the surface properties. I know how to insert coordinate breaks using the Standalone API, but I haven't been able to find resources on how to edit the parameters (decenter/tilt) of these coordinate breaks. A link to some documentation would be great.   Thanks

How to convert the type string to the type MeritOperandType in Matlab? I have a problem about ZOS-API in Matlab. Could we transform a MFE operator like 'REAY' in the type String to  ZOSAPI.Editors.MFE.MeritOperandType.REAY in Matlab?  Coud we do the the same thing like the following code for C#?  MeritOperandType mfOP; String OP='REAY'; mfOP = (MeritOperandType)Enum.Parse(typeof(MeritOperandType),OP, true);

Dear Zemax team,    Could you please help me put the legends showing the color of each line right next to the regarding legend or is there a way to do this with labels? As you can see, the labels do not show the colored line near them. So, it is hard to distinguish which one belongs to which data line. Next graph below is from an article on your webpage about diffractive optics macro and it does not have this problem. Attached in my macro. At the end of my macro , you can see how I call all the plots in a SUB routine. Your urgent help on this would be appreciated! No problem with legends or labels in the knowledge base article plot about diffractive optics below;  

Hi, I was trying to calculate the efficiency for user defined surface: us_hologram_kogelnik; I followed the manual and it works fine when the construction is     However, when z2=-23, the efficiency reduce significantly and the plot was like: I’ve already move the image surface to the focal plane. I don’t know if it is correct. Please help me.