ZEMAX
is supplied in two editions, SE (standard edition) and EE (engineering
edition). You can easily upgrade between versions.
ZEMAX-SE is
a fully-featured optical design program
which has built-in all the features that other packages
have as expensive add-ons. You may use an unlimited number
of surfaces, which may be spherical, conic, polynomial
aspheres, cylindrical, toric, spline, axicon, diffraction
grating, holograms, Fresnel, generalised ABCD surfaces,
and more. You may optimise any number of parameters in
any number of surfaces with an unlimited number of optimisation
targets. You can design multi-path systems, zoom systems
and scanning systems with ZEMAX's powerful multi-configuration
capability. It also allows you
to directly optimise the MTF and diffraction encircled
energy of your system, as well as adding gradient index
materials to the list of surfaces you can model.
Systems may be fully 3-D with unlimited tilts and decentres.
ZEMAX-SE gives you full analysis capability, including
2D and 3D layout drawings, ray-fans, OPD fans, spot diagrams,
MTF, point spread functions, footprint diagrams and much,
much more. SE also gives you ZEMAX's powerful built-in
illumination analysis capabilities, which performs full
image analysis, intensity histogramming, user-defined
source imaging etc, as well as Gaussian beam analysis.
You can summarise these analyses using ZEMAX-SE's report
graphics features, which give you either 4 or 6 ZEMAX
analysis windows on a single page, which can be portrait
or landscape.
ZEMAX-SE also gives you ZEMAX's integrated, easy to use
tolerancing capability. You can tolerance your system
on RMS spot size, wavefront error and completely user-defined
criteria. You can study production yields with the Monte
Carlo system generator and perform inverse sensitivity
analyses as well.
ZEMAX-SE also
has the global optimisation capability that has made ZEMAX
the choice of professional optical designers throughout
the world. ZEMAX-SE gives
you the ZPL macro language and automatic test plate fitting.
You can perform multi-mode and single-mode fibre-coupling
calculations with ZEMAX-SE, and also optimise a system
to give the best fibre coupling. You can model free-space
to fibre and fibre-to-fibre systems with ease.
ZEMAX-EE is
the most complete lens design code available.
It adds non-sequential ray-tracing through 3D objects,
and user-defined refractive, reflective and diffractive
surfaces. All parameters of these surfaces may of course
be optimised by the damped-least-squares optimiser or
the global optimisers, and you can even optimise on the
results of a macro calculation.
ZEMAX-EE also provides
generalized non-symetric binary/diffractive optics, Zernike
surfaces, elliptical and variable-line-spacing gratings,
and extended spline surfaces.
ZEMAX-EE gives you the Universal Plot, ZEMAX's unique
anything-versus-anything plot of optical system performance,
plus the ability to write your own surfaces and analysis
routines using C, Visual Basic or other programming language.
ZEMAX-EE allows you to model the thermal behaviour of
your system, and to optimise to minimise thermal effects.
You can also include the thermal effects introduced by
mounting materials.
ZEMAX-EE gives you comprehensive polarisation ray-tracing,
plus birefringent materials, thin-film modelling, coating
definition and analysis.
ZEMAX-EE
gives you powerful, fully non-sequential ray-tracing through
3D solid objects, including ray-splitting at boundaries
and scattering. This makes ZEMAX-EE ideal for illumination
analysis, stray light, and scattering systems.
ZEMAX-EE
has mechanical CAD import/export capabilities and supports
IGES, STEP, STL and SAT file formats. This is ideal for
modelling the entire opto-mechanical system.
ZEMAX-EE
has powerful Physical Optics Propagation
for treatment of laser beams and coherent effects in optical
systems!
ZEMAX-EE is the
most complete, most powerful lens design code available!
The following
table lists the major differences in the features supported
by the versions of ZEMAX. For more information, email more-info@optima-research.com
with any questions.
Sequential
Ray-Tracing Feature Summary
SE
EE
ARCHITECTURE
32
bit code architecture
X
X
Unlimited
number of surfaces, variables, targets, etc.
X
X
Non-Sequential
ray-tracing through 3D objects
X
GENERAL
3D optics placement (tilts, decenters,
rotations)
X
X
Circular, rectangular, elliptical,
spider shaped apertures and obscurations
X
X
DOCUMENTATION
Electronic
documentation with jumps, online help, reference material
ZEMAX-EE
supports the following features in non-sequential ray-tracing
mode:
General:
3D optics placement in a global coordinate system, with optional
linking of object positions. Unlimited number of sources, objects,
detectors, rays, etc.
Source
Types: Point, diode, elliptical, rectangular, filament,
volume, surface, Radiant SourceTM , user defined, many more
Object
Types: Triangles, rectangles, ellipses, cones, cylinders,
pipes, torus, surfaces, prisms. Fresnel lenses, conventional
lenses, aspheres, toroids, cylinders, MEMS, CPC. Diffractive
optics, holograms, gratings, user defined objects and prisms.
Objects imported from/exported to CAD programs in IGES, STEP,
SAT or STL format.
Objects
may be multiply nested, or in contact (glued). Media may be
arbitrary glass, gradient index, absorbing, reflecting, scattering,
or diffracting. Thin film coatings may be placed on any face
of any object, or between any objects.
Tools:
Detected energy may be viewed at any position anywhere in the
model. Coherent and incoherent irradiance, intensity plots (power/solid
angle). Export IGES, SAT, STL and STEP solid model data for
CAD programs.
Analysis:
Rays may split at any boundary into an arbitrary number of child
rays. Bulk and/or surface scattering on any object. Rays for
multiple orders of diffractive optics may be simultaneously
traced. Rays may be traced once and saved to a database for
subsequent analysis. Radiometric units (watts) or photometric
units (Lumens, Candela, Phot, Footcandle, etc.)
