ZEMAX Users' Knowledge Base - Articles - System Modeling

How to Use the ZEMAX Black Box Surface

no@spam.com (Mark Nicholson) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:00:00 PST

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.

How to Model an Off-Axis Parabolic Mirror at Finite Conjugates

no@spam.com (Sanjay Gangadhara) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:30:00 PDT

This article explains how to model an off-axis parabolic mirror when the source is a finite distance away from the mirror.

How to Debug a Double-Pass Lens File

no@spam.com (Mark Nicholson) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:30:00 PDT

This article describes an easy way to test whether a double-pass lens file is correctly set up, or not, and to identify where any errors are.

What is an ABCD surface?

no@spam.com (Mark Nicholson) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:00:00 PST

Paraxial�surfaces are often used to represent the first-order properties of a 'black box' lens. ABCD surfaces have some benefits, and also some weaknesses, compared to the paraxial surface. This�note explains when to use these complementary approaches

How to Simulate High Resolution Images

no@spam.com (Mark Nicholson) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:00:00 PST

This article describes how to use the Image Simulation analysis tool to produce photorealistic images of object scenes including the effects of diffraction, aberrations, distortion, relative illumination, image�orientation and polarization.

How to Use the Find Best Asphere Tool

no@spam.com (Mark Nicholson) — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:00:00 PDT

This article describes a fast method to identify which surfaces in a design will best benefit from aspherization.

How to Use the Zernike Sag Surface to Model an All-Reflective System

no@spam.com (Mark Nicholson) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:00:00 PDT

This is a companion article to How To Model a 'Black-Box' Optical System Using Zernike Coefficients, and discusses the special case of an all-reflective design. This uses a Zernike Sag surface, instead of a Zernike Phase surface. The benefit is that the resulting system models the original all-reflective system at all wavelengths for a given field point.

How To Model a 'Black-Box' Optical System Using Zernike Coefficients

no@spam.com (Mark Nicholson) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:00:00 PDT

It is often required to represent an optical system in a design even though you do not have detailed prescription data like radii of curvature, glasses etc. This article shows how to use Zernike coefficients to describe the wavefront aberrations of a system and produce a simple but accurate representation of an optical system if a ZEMAX Black Box Surface file cannot be used. This is typically the case if you are relying on experimental data measured using the optical system, but its prescription data is not available to you.

This article is also available in Japanese.

How To Model Corner-Cube Retroreflectors

no@spam.com (Mark Nicholson) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:00:00 PDT

Corner Cube retroreflectors are commonly used in a wide range of optical systems. This article describes various different ways in which these components can be modeled in ZEMAX. The treatment can be as detailed as the user needs, with effects due to face misalignment, roofline straddling, thin-film coatings, diffraction etc included as required.

ZEMAX Models of the Human Eye

no@spam.com (Rod Watkins) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:00:00 PDT

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.