Hi friends,I don’t have part designer, so I always struggle to get a CAD file to a User defined surface. Looking at all the posts closest I see is the link below, but the author never posted the .csv file or the CAD so I can’t test the code since step1 and step2 didn’t work out for me. Wondering if anyone else had the same issues and if someone figured out a way to convert a CAD file to a closed loop freeform or a aspheric surface?Converting CAD data of the TIR lens into the parametric surface for optimization in NSQ mode | Zemax Community 

Good morning everybody!I do have a question regarding the opening of zmx files in Zemax Programming Language.Basically, I just ran a 250 Monte Carlo tolerancing analysis on my system (and I saved them all). I also created a custom Merit function used to compute the optical quality of my system and to compute important parameters such as focal length, chief ray position on the detector, etc…Is there a way to easily obtain the Merit function for all of the 250MC? Maybe there is something to do with ZPL but it would require for ZPL to be able to open other zmx files. I don’t even know if that’s possible.Or maybe there is an easier way to do so (such as saving the Merit function directly during the tolerancing analysis but I didn’t find this option).So if any one here has already experienced the same need, I would be more than happy to have some help!Thank you very much :D

Hi All, I have a question regarding EXPP. It seems from the comments here that Zemax calculates EXPP by tracing two parabasal rays +y and -y which are 1e-3 deviated from the on-axis ray (not sure if deviation is in normalized field coordinates, ray direction at stop, or something else) and then find their intersection. I have a few questions regarding that: Is EXPP (which is just a Z-offset from image plane) the plane used to draw the reference sphere for OPD and PSF calculations? Why do we not also trace +x and -x rays and how this affects the accuracy of the reference sphere? That value of EXPP seems to differ if Ray aiming is OFF vs Real. How does the calculation differ in each case? Since EXPP uses parabasal rays, it should be accurate for decentered and tilted systems? Thanks a lot for your insight. Best, 

Hi all, Regarding the built-in grating object in sequential/non-sequential mode (especially in non-sequential mode): I know we can assign different diffraction efficiency (DE) values for different diffraction orders, but this DE is typically constant across all incident angles.Is there a standard way to assign an efficiency profile that varies with incident angle without fully modeling the real grating structure (like with RCWA)?For example, for the 1st diffraction order:-10 deg incidence -> DE = 0.30 deg incidence -> DE = 0.1+10 deg incidence -> DE = 0.2I am looking for a behavioral model rather than a physical one to save simulation time. Would the best approach be writing a User Defined DLL, or is there a way to utilize a Table Coating to modulate the efficiency, or even other potential methods?Thanks for any insights! Best,Kaden

Replaced by the question here:  

Hello everybody,I’m trying to optimize a Biconic Zernike lens in the non-sequential mode.I want to control / limit the edge and center thickness of this lens during the optimization.In the SEQ-Mode you can use constraints like MNCG etc., but I don’t know how to implement these constraints in the NSQ-mode.→ Does anybody know how to do this?Thank you very much in advance,Felix

Hi, I am trying to use RMS wavefront as criterion for tolerancing. When I check the value of the criterion in the tolerancing tool, it is 10 times lower than in the wavefront map! I tried to improve the sampling either in the tolerancing menu or in the wavefront map menu, but it didn’t help. I only have one wavelength and one field to simplify.Thanks if anyone has an explanation…Julien