This article introduces prospective and new ZEMAX users to the Non-Sequential ray tracing capabilities of ZEMAX including:

• Faceted reflectors
• Lamp distributions
• Prisms
• Ray splitting
• Scattering
• Diffractive optics
• Coherence modeling
• Complex geometry creation
• Absorption analysis

This article explains:

• How to enter and edit non-sequential objects in the non-sequential editor
• How to draw rays on the layout plots to get a qualitative feel for the optical system performance
• How to trace large numbers of rays to get quantitative data on system performance

The lens file representing the final system is included as zipped file, which can be downloaded from the last page of this article.

This article outlines the procedure for modeling a mixed mode system in ZEMAX, which utilizes both sequential surfaces and non-sequential objects in the same lens file.  The following topics are discussed in detail.

• Inserting/Creating a non-sequential group within an otherwise sequential design.
• Defining entry and exit port locations, shapes, and sizes.
• Common mistakes and considerations.

This article explains:

• How to convert sequential surfaces to  non-sequential objects
• How to insert non-sequential sources and detectors
• How to perform analysis ray-traces

ZEMAX has several features that improve non-sequential optimization effiiciency. In this article, we re-optimize a free form mirror using pixel interpolation and added capabilities of the NSDD merit function operand.

This article explains how to correctly retrieve data from the NSDD operand for use in the Universal Plot 1D and 2D analysis features.