The ZEMAX Black Box surface solves the problem of how to share optical design data without revealing design secrets. This article explains how to export part or all of an optical design as a ZEMAX Black Box surface, and how to use that surface in subsequent optical design, optimization and analysis.

This article is also available in Japanese.

This article describes how to simulate the optical appearance a diamond using the powerful, non-sequential capabilities of ZEMAX. It uses a white light source and the true-color capabilities of ZEMAX to show the visual appearance of the diamond. It also contains a useful trick to maximize the light grasp of the receiving optics, and the macro used to generate the polygon object file for a diamond.

ZEMAX Development Corporation supports the teaching of optical design at University level by lending licenses for use in qualified classes. This article describes the ZEMAX Educational Support Program and gives details of how to apply for support.

This article describes how to model a rainbow including water droplets and the sun's blackbody spectrum.

This article is also available in Japanese.

The Detector Color object provides a tool to visualize the True Color image of an optical system. This object stores both Tristimulus data and power data, and allows both the irradiance (Position Space) and radiant intensity (Angle Space) distributions to be shown. Quantitative results from the detector may be extracted into the merit function using the NSDE operand. These results can be used both for system evaluation and optimization. A simple color optimization example is given.