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

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!

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.

Hello ! I am currently struggling to use the ZOS-API (Python) and a .TSC tolerancing script in order to perform a tolerancing and save the resulting Monte-Carlo files. Here are the tests I performed: Run the PythonStandalone_14_Seq_Tolerance script (which uses RMSSpotRadius as a criterion instead of UserScript) Works like a charm, MC files are saved Test my .TSC tolerancing script through the GUI MC files are saved Use a python script similar to PythonStandalone_14_Seq_Tolerance to apply the correct settings before tolerancing Tolerancing is performed, the .TSC tolerancing script is executed and saves a result file as planned (using the OPENFILE, CLOSEFILE and REPORT commands) but the MC files are not saved (despite using the SAVE command) However, if I use the python script to apply the settings and save them, and then use the GUI to load them and run the tolerancing,

Hi, I'm trying to develop a MATLAB script that will automatically create a Zemax optical performance model from a specified design model. This involves copying across some data from the design model, such as surface thicknesses. I've hit an issue where, after creating the new optical performance model, the editor that originally pointed to the LDE of the design model (DesignLDE) switches to the LDE of the new optical performance model (OptPerfLDE). Therefore, my original idea to extract a surface thickness from DesignLDE and set it as a thickness in OptPerfLDE does not work (since DesignLDE and OptPerfLDE now refer to the same editor). Is there a way that I can have editors from two different Zemax models available in MATLAB to facilitate copying of data, as described above? Or, do I have to load one model, copy the required data (such as surface thickness) to a variable and then load the other model? If the latter, then it would make sense to grab all t

In diffractive waveguide AR design, there are two main technical routes, hologram (Bragg grating) and surface relief grating. Let us review the similarity, difference, and modelling methods for each.

I am writing an Interactive Extension with python (following this KB article) and want to have the 3D Layout window update. Apparently, with these extensions, the default UpdateMode is set to Editors only. I searched the KnowledgeBase and found two relevant articles: https://my.zemax.com/en-US/Knowledge-Base/kb-article/?ka=KA-01828#EditorsOnly https://my.zemax.com/en-US/forum/threads/4e706d89-37a3-e911-b083-00155de9288f#143314bd-39a3-e911-a978-000d3a378dd3 Unfortunately, these explain how to do this for MATLAB only, and I am very confused about “ZOSAPI' vs. “TheSystem' vs. “constants' etc. I “translated' both options in the fi

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 Matalb?  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);

I applied a solve on position z by 'SOLVETYPE'. Then I need to refer to the result of solve, i.e. the position os z.  I am trying to using 'GETNSCPOSITION'. According to the EXTENSION DATA ITEMS, this should return the object position and angle and material. However, the viewer shows 'Unknown symbol GETNSCPOSITION.' The similar command 'SETNSCPOSITION' works fine. But not the GETNSCPOSITION. It seems in the editor, it does not recoganize it as a legal command Can anyone help something is wrong? Thanks.

I am running Zemax OpticStudio 19.4 SP2 on Windows 10. When I run the following line in a loop in a macro, randomly, some of the files are empty. The non-empty files are correct.  GETTEXTFILE OUTPUT_PSF_FILE$, Hps, CFG_FILENAME$, 1 Please help!   Thanks,     Qiang

Hello, I was wondering why there is no vignetteCode at IRayTraceNormPolData, even if it can be found at all other functions as IRayTraceNormUnpolData, IRayTraceDirectUnpolData and IRayTraceDirectPolData. Is there a reason for this? As a workaround, one could use these alternative functions but which makes the coding much more cumbersome. Thank you and best regards,  Gregor 

Dear support team, I have problems understanding the behaviour of the PDL statement GETTEXTFILE in combination with the settingsfile: I am using GETTEXTFILE for Huygens PSF simulations. My questions: 1. Which settings are used if no settingsfile is given at all? It seems that in this case the settings that are saved with the 'save' button in the 'Huygns PSF' window are used. Is this correct and always the case? Does it additionaly depend on the 'flag' setting? 2. With flag=2 the settings box for the requested feature should be displayed. This doesn't seem to happen. No setting box appears. Or is this only the case in combination with an explicit  settingsfile? I tryed w/o settingsfile. 3. How can I make sure that the current  settings in the 'Huygns PSF' window are used for the simulation? Thank you and best regards, Christof. -- DR. CHRISTOF BODENDORF M

I am writing a user defined surface DLL, and want to know if I can speed up the DLL by storing specific precomputed values in FIXED_DATA4 or FIXED_DATA5 datasurf values. In my DLL I have several variables (a1, a2, a3 etc) which are affected by the curvature, conic constant, and one of my surface parameters (which will not vary during optimisation). The sag of the surface is a function in x and y, with different powers of x and y multiplied by these variables. eg. a1*x + a2*x*y + ... I may be misunderstanding how the DLL works, but I currently expect that each time it is called it will compute my variables (a1,a2 etc) and then calculate the sag, meaning that it is inefficiently repeating the same calculations many times, where I only need to compute the sag from the variables which are fixed during any raytracing and optimisation. Can I add code on initialisation to store the curvature, conic constant, and param[1] to the data surf values as well as the correspon

I have a lens file open, with some analysis windows open.  Using ZPL, I want to loop through and change the .CFG file (this is for a detector window in non-sequential.).   I haven't done it yet, but I think this will change the settings:           ModifySettings (filename,DVW_FILTER, ‘new_filter_string”, ‘DVR’) , or something like that, once I get the quotes straightened out.     However, my question is:  How do I force the open analysis window to update with the new .cfg file? In ZPL Macro, there does not seem to be any command like:  LoadNewConfig(Filename, WindowNumber).    I know I might be able to open a new analysis window, but for reasons of being able to see what is going on, I'll save that for Option B. thanks for your time.    John

Hello, I'm looking for a way to write to a .csv file.  I found the keywords for OPEN and READ to work with a data file, but did not find how WRITE to a csv file.  Can someone help please? Raphael Levy

Dear All, I'm trying to do ImageSimulation in ZOS-API with MATLAB. I want to output the simulated image as a MATLAB variable but couldn't. Unfortunately, the way explained in 'How do I output the image of an analysis in ZOS-API?' didn't work well.  Below is the part of my code I tried following the previous thread. It was confirmed that the lens data was properly loaded. TheSystem.LoadFile(testFile,false);  im_analysis = TheSystem.Analyses.New_ImageSimulation();  im_analysis.ApplyAndWaitForCompletion();  im_results = im_analysis.GetResults();  matrixData = im_results.DataGrids(1).Values.double;   What's wrong with my code? Thanks in advance for your help, Shimpei

I have been trying to retrieve data from Zemax's FootPrint Diagram under  'Rays and Spots’ for various fields into MATLAB. From my reading and searching the help documentation I was able to located the enum ZOSAPI.Analysis.AnalysisIDM.FootprintSettings that may be helpful for the data import I need. Is there an example or help on how to exactly get the FootPrint Diagram data for various fields at different surfaces of the optical model.

I am plotting multiple plots with the zpl macro. I have each plot a separate color but would like to label them in a legend. So far I have not found a method in the help menu. Anyone know if there is a method to do this? Thanks

I found a NSC polygon object 'prism_array.pob' that does ALMOST what I want (put a linear array of microprisms on a 'slab' of material), but I would like to generate (micro-)prisms having different angles, spacing, scale, and different thickness 'slabs.' Editing the .POB file shows that it starts as follows with the comment that it was created by a ZPL macro 'prism_array.zpl': '! This polygon object was created by the prism_array.zpl macro ! V 1  82.50000000  50.00000000  0 V 2  82.50000000 -50.00000000  0 V 3 -82.50000000 -50.00000000  0 V 4 -82.50000000  50.00000000  0 R 1 2 3 4 0 0 V 5  82.50000000  50.00000000  10.00000000 ...' But I can't find the prism_array.zpl macro to edit it, see what can be varied, or to use it to generate new prism array .POBs. Can anybody provide a copy of prism_array.zpl, or point me to where to find it?  I have the late