Hi everyone, Is there a way to give a radius variable a range of possible values that can never be crossed? As I understand I can give operands CVLT and CVGT to make the range (e.g. for values between 5 and 15 mm I need, as I understand, CVGT with target on 1/15 and CVLT with target on 1/5 if lens units are millimetres) but sometimes they go beyond the range and I don’t really know how to prevent the optimization from doing it. Thank you for help,Fabian

Simplest possible non-sequential file - 3 objects: Source Ellipse (10mm in X and Y, collimated, 1E6 analysis rays),NSC Paraxial Lens (X and Y half width = -6mm,  X/Y focal length set to 50mm),Detector Rectangle (X and Y = 0.02mm, 100x100 pixels, with Data Type=1, PSF Wave # = 1)The detector is located 50mm from the paraxial lens, so it is at focus.  However, the above parameters just give gibberish rather than a PSF pattern.  What am I doing wrong?  How can I get an NSC paraxial lens to form a coherent irradiance diffraction pattern on a rectangular detector?  Is the NSC Paraxial Lens object incapable of doing this? Thanks, Mike 

Hi everyone,I got a problem in understanding the optimization in Zemax OpticStudio… By doing a simple lens (with thickness T and radius of R1 and R2) and trying to optimize it on the spot image quality setting I don’t get the smallest RMS on the image plane. The optimal image distance of the smallest RMS after the optimization is always 1-2 millimetres after the image plane. Could someone help me to understand this? Why is it there and not at the image plane? By testing I saw that changing the image quality option to contrast works way better to focus on the image plane… I’ve added a simple model to show my problem… Thank you in advice! 

Hello Users and Zemax Staff,The design I am working on is chromatic aberration sensor. I would like to ask if there is a possibility to analyze peak irradiance on the detector in the function of wavelength of the light source. In other words, I need an information which wavelength of the light source (reflected from some surface) is focused best on the detector’s surface (at given Z position).So far, I found Flux vs wavelength, which is great but only carry information about power (losses) and Dectector Viewer - but it only gives information about total (all wavelength) irradiance. Light source is defined as spectrum file.Best regards,Michal Cwikla

Hi,I would like to read several numeric data as well as text data from a .dat-file into a zpl macro to use some of them for further use.For example, the .dat file has 5 rows and 3 lines, divided by Tabs, e.g.:Pos1    3.7   4.2   6.2   8.7Pos2    9.0   7.5   2.8   5.6Pos3    0.5   1.8   4.6   4.3Is it possible to use the READ command for reading the complete .dat-file and to select afterwards some special data for further optimization?Or would it be possible to read only some special data from the .dat-file for further use, e.g. (Row2, Line 2 = 9.0) and (Row3, Line 3 =1.8)? Best regardsRalf  

Hello,When using objects as sources it would be very useful to normalize the power to the surface area of the object. A good example of where this is useful is for blackbody sources where the intensity per surface area is well known.Internally Zemax must be calculating the surface area when doing the raytrace in order to distribute the rays evenly.Is it possible to have access to this information?Has someone already created a macro to do this for generic objects?thanks,Ross 

Hi,I  am facing an issue when I try to extract ray trace data for a non sequential component in mixed mode of Zemax. In the above data, I want to get the direction cosines of normal and incident ray for NSC object 7 and 2 using a ZPL macro (as I am tracing a 10000 rays). Since for  RANX(surface) (Surface number in the sequential editor has to be given) I don’t know which surface number has to given for this case.  I also tried to save the ray trace data every time I trace the ray, but When I run RAYTRACE hx,hy,px,py,wav, (for different px and py), somehow the data in the Raytrace text is not getting update. Can you please provide me a solution for this. 

Good Afternoon, Product: Premium Subscription SUL License Number: L123561 Expiration: Friday, December 9, 2022The above is my information. However, I had my Zemax OpticStudio but then a notification popped up  “Zemax key not found” then I restarted computer and now it is directing me to the Zemax License Manager version. When I put in the same License  Number and activation code, it fails because it is not a new license. I never transferred it so I do not know why  it got removed since I got until Dec 09, 2022. This is what I now see when I click the application  Does anyone have suggestions or a solution? Thank you in advance. Very Respectfully, Talaya S. White 

Hello, My OpticStudio educational license(L112997) has been expired.  I have applied for an update through ZEMAX Global Academic Program Website several days ago, but I haven't received a response. Any update on this issue?Best RegardsIssam Abdallah

Me and my friend received new license from an extension request. But we can’t still activation.

Hi Zemax Support Team,I am Alaeddine Yacoub. I am an M.Sc. Electrical Eng student at Technical University of Munich I have a Zemax student license. I recently changed my laptop and forgot to transfer my license. The other laptop is formatted and won't be used. How can I transfer my license to my new laptop. thank you very much for your help.  Product: Premium Subscription SULLicense Number: L118541 Greetings, Alaeddine Yacoub

Hi  Dear staffs, I have gone through the help document on Ports but If  I get any demo files with explanation would be helpful to understand the function and importance of  defining Ports. Kindly give your valuable ideas, Thank youEbinesh

Hi Zemax Community,what’s the best/easiest way to detect rays hitting the back side of a reflective object? It’s a pretty complex Non-sequential system with a source, primary detector and many “parallel” objects in between. I’m trying to understand the losses due to 1) objects blocking rays reflected from another object and preventing them from reaching the primary detector and 2) objects shading other objects and preventing rays from reaching the other objects, to be reflected to the primary detector. One idea for the blocking instances is to create a set of separate, absorbing detectors just off the backsides of the reflective objects. This would work and be a bit cumbersome. Maybe there’s an easier way? Can a reflective object have dual properties on each face? Or?Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks,Josh

Dear Experts,I am just optimizing my design with a TOLR function in the Merit Function.I can start the optimization with 7 variables, all looks good and the Merit function value decreases. I assume the TOLR001.TOP function, I have saved before and copied into the config folder, is loaded. After some minutes I get the error message below. Any idea, what could cause this ? Attached some error messages I got: Then I get a bit of abnormal behaviour of Zemax, like the Layout is not display anymore. So far I only could restart Zemax.Maybe somebody has an idea?Many thanksMarkus

Is it possilbe to use target values from a merit function in a zpl macro.For example, there are some defined constraints in the optical path length (OPTH) for e.g. 5 different ray deflections (different Hx or Hy) of an imaging system. Can I use these fixed values in the ZPL macro for further optimization?

Hi,is there a way to specify the surface imperfections in the ISO drawing as per the visibility method (40-20 scratch-dig for example), instead of just the dimensional method (NxA, CN’xA’...)?The ISO 10110 standard has been updated (in 2017) to include both methods.I am using Zemax 20.3.1.Thanks,Audrey

Dear all,Greetings of the day. Can any one help me about the type optimization to be used for designing lenses of plastic material ? Should I use local or hammer optimization ?Thankskarthik

Dear all, do you know if there is a limitation on the number of EXTRA DATA columns in Optic Studio? Previous Zemax provided just 242 columns. I need to import ~ 500 data points to a user defined surface. Any help is highly appreciated. Thank you and best regards, Mario

Hi everyone, I’m currently trying to simulate an LED-Array in sequential mode and I’m running into a bit of trouble. For first approximation, I simulate the LED-Array using a 5 fields. I’m planning to use a merit function for optimization using the GENF (Enclosed Energy) which only works for one field at a time. But as my aim is to describe the entire enclosed energy of all 5 fields at the image, I can’t properly tell Zemax the optimization target. My options are:Find a better operand for the merit functionDescribe the entire system in the NSC → Is there something similar to the enclosed energy operand?Describe the LED-Array as one field for first approximation. But as far as I know, there is no way to define a beam profile in SC which could be built corresponding to the different angular intensity of the LED-Array. Does anyone have an idea about this? Thanks in advance. 

For the sake of better understanding the impact of individual components I played with tilts and decenters of lenses imaging a diode array in the far field. One of the criteria was the far field divergence i.e. a rather precise cross-section profile at a certain distance. Due to tilts and/or decenters the image of the diode array on the (stationary) detector moves up and down. As such the image (footprint of the array) provides a certain degree of information (see attached) but it is impossible to apply e.g. the “Cross section row” feature in order to obtain a precise profile shape or get the correct numerical values thereof. This feature obviously works correctly only if the image lies on the X-axis of a detector. It is of course, possible to shift the detector in Y direction to place the (shifted) image on X-axis but it would be difficult to hit the precise Y-shift value.Is it possible to add a “self-center” feature to “Cross section row” (or column) for such cases? Any other ideas/

我想查看加工后的表面面型对于系统光学性能的影响，使用UA3P 对表面进行了测试，测试数据可以导入模拟中吗？ 

請問如果有已經知道的擴散片發散角度和強度的關係，有建議的建模方法嗎? 

ノンシーケンシャルモードでレンズ面の前後を偏芯(ティルト)させることは出来るでしょうか？

Hello, Zemax community!I am interested in optimizing an optical system with an imported CAD model (collimator). Zemax knowledgebase has an excellent article explaining how to use dynamic model links ("Using the OpticStudio Dynamic CAD link"). However, only model parameters that are explicitly used in the model can be used in optimization. This slows down optimization when it comes to optimizing a surface profile that can be plotted using a few dozen points rather than a few polynomial coefficients. This is inconvenient when it comes to optimizing the surface profile, which can be constructed using several tens of points or several polynomial coefficients. Unfortunately, the curve equation coefficients specified by the user in the CAD program are not displayed in OpticStudio. Is there any way to use user-defined parameters of the CAD model in the optimization process in OpticStudio?

If I have say, five more or less identical objects in the NCE, that are in different X,Y positions, and I’m accessing the NCE via an Interactive Extension, is there a way to index the assigned names of the NCE rows somehow? For example, in the Matlab extensioninstead of having to create five unique Objects: Heliostat1, Heliostat2,… Heliostat5, as shown below, Heliostat1 = TheNCE.GetObjectAt(2);Heliostat2 = TheNCE.GetObjectAt(3);Heliostat3 = TheNCE.GetObjectAt(4);Heliostat4 = TheNCE.GetObjectAt(5);Heliostat5 = TheNCE.GetObjectAt(6);is there a way to index the left side variable names so that they can be used in a loop? Such as: for h = 1:5Heliostat(1) = TheNCE.GetObjectAt(h+1);end;When I try the above, I get something like: “Array formation and indexing are not allowed on .NET objects.” I’m hoping there is some sensible way to do this.  This would be extremely helpful when performing looped calculations to alter the physical properties of each of these objects in the NCE and then wantin