10 Optical Design Software Trials Offered : Try them all !

Select your optical design software in three steps : 1) Define your needs ! Which type of software do I need ? Which tasks I need to do ? Three kind of optical design software exists : imaging optics ray tracing software, straylight and illumination optics software, wave optics software. Main tasks which could be done with optical designs software are the modeling , optimization, analysis and tolerancing of optical systems. Imaging optics software propagates the light in a predetermined sequential order from an object or display to a image detector, eye or screen. Straylight and illumination optics software operates in a non sequential mode : the light source emits rays which are propagated in space from an object to another object without concerns on the order of the interesection of the rays with the object. Wave optics software includes approched and rigoureous propagations models of light and are used where ray tracing is not relevant or innaccurate. 2 ) You should compare sofware functionalities for your needs ! For a given task, software could provide different functionnalities. For instance, the image quality analysis could be evaluated with the spot radius size, the encircled energy, the CTF or MTF. You should compare the different software with in mind the functionalities which are important for your needs. Look in details at the functionalities of interest for you ; from one software to another software you may found that some functions are more adapted to your needs. 3) You have to try ! Hopefully, most of optical software providers propose now some trial versions. We are happy to offer you below links towards 10 software trial version requests. Be aware that trial version are limited and evaluation take time :-). Zemax OpticStudio : https://www.zemax.com/products/opticstudio-trial CodeV, LightTools, RSoft : https://www.synopsys.com/cgi-bin/optical-solutions/contact/contact1.cgi APEX, ASAP : http://www.breault.com/software/try-asap-nextgen-free Photon Engineering : https://photonengr.com/fred-software/demo-request/ VirtualLab : https://www.lighttrans.com/resources/trial-software.html Tracepro, Oslo : https://www.lambdares.com/trials/ Author : Scoptique is a consulting company with an in-house engineering division and a recruitment division, ProfileOptics. The engineering division proposes research and development studies in optical design and engineering. The recruitment division proposes internationnally to the optical systems industry a broad range of experts from optical engineering to mechanical, thermal, electronics, sofware or system engineering.