This article explains how to create user-defined surfaces of revolution for use in the non-sequential mode of ZEMAX. Examples employing the Bezier curve and a cubic spline curve are provided. 

The Detector Volume object in ZEMAX is a very useful tool for detecting light inside a volume. It uses volume pixels, or voxels, to detect light. However, the ZEMAX interface currently allows these voxels to be viewed only in 2-D planes. This article will show you how to use ZEMAX to create intricate CAD models of the voxels in a Detector Volume, and a sample ZPL macro is given at the end of this article for use in creating these CAD models automatically.

In this article, a wedged LCD backlight is modeled, analyzed, and optimized for illumination output criteria.

This article explains how to call a macro from within another macro, and how data are passed back and forth between macros.

There have been literally dozens of eye models published over more than 150 years, from very simple “reduced” eyes consisting of a single refracting surface to very complex models with more than 4,000 refracting surfaces. This article presents several sequential and non-sequential models of the human eye in ZEMAX format, with glass catalog data.