In the final phase of their design work optical designers sometimes need to experiment with equivalent/similar glasses in order to fine tune their design, reduce cost, avoid long-lead time glasses, etc.
Why not having this feature: right-click in the selected Material cell in the LDE and a pop-up menu called "Equivalent/Closest Materials" appears with the list of the material catalogs we can choose from.
As soon as the catalog has been chosen ZEMAX applies the equivalent material from that catalog or in case an equivalent doesn't exist, the closest available material. Equivalence/similarity selection criteria can start with nd and Abbe number and can be refined down the road by adding e.g. pop-up submenus.
Kind regards, Dusan
+3Hey Dusan,
I really like that idea. In the meantime, there is a little trick that you can do that can help.
In the Glass Substitution Template, temporarily mark the glass you're using as Obsolete. Then, in the LDE, go to your glass and make it a Model glass (cntl-Z) and you'll get the index, Abbe, and partial dispersion of your glass. Then do cntl-Z again, and OpticStudio will choose the nearest non-obsolete glass in the current glass substitution template.
I'm sure you already know that you can sort the glass catalogs by index or Abbe, so you can select your glass and then sort the catalog by whatever you want to see the nearest equivalents. That said, your idea would be a lot easier. In the Glass Map, OS could highlight the currently used glasses so you could easily see the nearest glasses.
I really like that idea. In the meantime, there is a little trick that you can do that can help.
In the Glass Substitution Template, temporarily mark the glass you're using as Obsolete. Then, in the LDE, go to your glass and make it a Model glass (cntl-Z) and you'll get the index, Abbe, and partial dispersion of your glass. Then do cntl-Z again, and OpticStudio will choose the nearest non-obsolete glass in the current glass substitution template.
I'm sure you already know that you can sort the glass catalogs by index or Abbe, so you can select your glass and then sort the catalog by whatever you want to see the nearest equivalents. That said, your idea would be a lot easier. In the Glass Map, OS could highlight the currently used glasses so you could easily see the nearest glasses.
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