This article explains:

• Modifying system settings, including System Aperture, Lens Units, Fields and Wavelengths
• Entering lens prescription data
• Using solves to enforce design contraints
• Analyzing system performance prior to optimization
• Determining degrees of freedom and setting variables
• Setting up a default merit function
• Optimizing and analyzing final design performance

The author attended last week's International Optical Design Conference (IODC) at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Amongst many papers presented, there were several that were notably important to the ZEMAX user.

This article introduces prospective and new ZEMAX users to the capabilities of sequential mode in ZEMAX including:

• Layouts
• Spot Diagrams
• Ray and Optical Path Difference (OPD) Fans 
• MTF calculations
• Extended source modeling
• Off-axis systems
• System aperture, field and wavelength data

This article can be used to explore both the ZEMAX demo and full, licensed versions of ZEMAX.

This article is also available in Japanese.

• what an afocal system is
• how to optimize such systems
• how to get data from afocal systems in angular units
• how to handle cylindrical systems
• how to handle systems with multiple focal and afocal spaces

The article includes a zip archive containing sample files, which can be downloaded from the link on the last page of this article.