Let's say you were interested in how the wavefront of the beam compressor varies as the distance from the first lens to the intermediate surface varies. In other words, as we go out of focus on the intermediate focus, how does the collimated output change?

First open an OPD plot, and then click on the thickness of surface 3. The click on Tools -> Miscellaneous -> Slider, and set it up as follows:



You can enter start and stop values of the thickness of surface 3 (ZEMAX makes a reasonable guess as to what values you want) and then you can either use the slider to manually adjust the value within this range or press the Animate button to have ZEMAX loop through the values. The OPD plot will update automatically as the thickness of surface 3 changes. You can choose to update all open windows or just a nominated window as the parameter is varied.

The Slider is very useful for quick analysis of the sensitivity of a parameter to adjustment, or for a rough optimization by hand. Like the Quick Adjust tool, the Slider remains open while you adjust other data, open other windows etc, and you can have as many sliders open at one time as you wish.

Note that since the Slider and Quick Adjust tools are not Analysis windows, they are not saved when the file is saved.