ZEMAX Users' Knowledge Base - Articles - ZPL

How to manipulate BMP and JPG files using the IMAGEEXTRACT and IMAGECOMBINE keywords

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

This article explains how images can be spliced and merged together in ZEMAX using the IMAGEEXTRACT and IMAGECOMBINE keywords. An example illustrating how these tools can be used to model a document scanner is also provided.

How to Call a ZPL Macro From Within a ZPL Macro

no@spam.com (Sanjay Gangadhara) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:00:00 PST

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

How To Modify Field Data in the Merit Function Editor Using the FDMO operand

no@spam.com (Sanjay Gangadhara) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:00:00 PST

Although only 12 field points can be defined in the Field dialog, the FMDO optimization operand allows these points to be re-defined on the fly during optimization. This means that any operand that uses a field number as an argument can be computed anywhere in the field of view. This article explains how to use this powerful capability.

How To Use the PLOT keyword in ZPL

no@spam.com (Sanjay Gangadhara) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:00:00 PST

The ZEMAX Programming Language (ZPL) supports a comprehensive PLOT keyword for making graphs of data arrays. This article shows some examples of how to use it.

How to Measure the Sag of an NSC Object

no@spam.com (Sanjay Gangadhara) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 00:00:00 PST

This article describes how to measure the surface sag of a non-sequential object using the NSRA operand.

How to Use Programmer's Editors With ZPL

no@spam.com (Neil Barrett) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 PDT

One of the many benefits of ZPL macros is that they can be written in any text editor, such as Windows' own Notepad. However, macros are often a lot easier to read, understand and debug when the macro commands are highlighted, and programmer's text editors provide more powerful text editing features.

This article describes how to use two such programmer's editors with ZPL.

ZPL Macro for Scaling the Weight of a Range of Optimization Operands

no@spam.com (Dan Hill) — Wed, 16 May 2007 00:00:00 PDT

This article introduces a quick and simple macro that can be used to scale the weighting of a range of optimization operands.

How to Set Solves from ZPL

no@spam.com (Mark Nicholson) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:00:00 PDT

This article described a brief ZPL code snippet written to save the author from some tedious keyboard data entry.

This article is also available in Japanese.

How To Update and Change the Settings of a Graphic Window from ZPL

no@spam.com (Dan Hill) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 01:00:00 PDT

This article describes how to change the settings of a graphic window via the MODIFYSETTINGS ZPL keyword.

How To Debug a ZPL Macro

no@spam.com (Mark Nicholson) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 PST

This article explains good practice and gives some helpful tips on how best to write and debug your ZPL macros.