What’s Next in Optical Design Software

Optical design software vendors continue to offer more functionality, more interoperability with other software programs such as CAD, and greater optimization. But they also continue to struggle with ease of use, primarily because the number of occasional users continues to grow — users who lack the experience necessary to properly utilize the package’s capabilities. So what’s next for optical design software? Removing the roadblock of a steep learning curve, and giving users what they’re asking for — optimization and tolerancing capabilities — are at the top of the list.

A Steep Learning Curve

Although there has been progress among vendors to improve ease of use, it remains a roadblock for users who are optical designers. “It’s very common to say, ‘you were a mechanical engineer yesterday, but you’re an optical engineer today,’” said Bob Hilbert, president and CEO of Optical Research Associates, provider of Code V® and LightTools® software. “And then two years later, you’re out of it and on to some other assignment.”

“There is an assumption in optical programs that you know certain things. It’s up to the software vendors to fix that.” Bob Hilbert Optical Research Associates

 

Dr. Mark Nicholson, vice president of operations for Zemax Development Corp., which offers optical design software, agrees. “The normal working pattern is that someone may work with the program intensively for a couple of weeks, and then they don’t touch it for months. Then, they come back to it. Having a familiar, easy user interface is very important.”

“It’s a sad state of affairs,” said Richard Pfisterer, president of Photon Engineering, which provides FRED optical engineering software. “A very large percentage of people using optical design software are very dangerous using it. They don’t have the expertise, they don’t know what the numbers mean, and they don’t understand how to get answers out of the software.” He added that 20 years ago, “Companies didn’t take their mechanical engineer and say, ‘Today, you’re going to design a lens.’ But today, it happens all the time.” To counter that, said Pfisterer, “We try to educate our customers in the complexity of what they’re doing, and give them tools that help them get there.” Ultimately, it is up to the vendors, said Hilbert, to solve the problem, regardless of how experienced the user may be. “There is an assumption in optical programs that you know certain things. It’s up to the software vendors to fix that,” Hilbert added. “The vendors have to make it easier to use or many users may not be able to leverage the package as well as they could otherwise.”

But ease of use can also get in the way of functionality, according to G. Groot Gregory, vice president of Lambda Research Corp., whose products include TracePro® software. “Sometimes an easyto- use program hides functionality. We all want our software to be easy to use, but we also need to make sure that it’s powerful and flexible enough so that it can do the job.”

As vendors create the perception that their software is easy to use, the fact remains that there are still complex underlying problems that require a greater level of understanding. “I’m not completely sure that we’re doing a service by trying to portray optical software as being super-easy,” said Kathleen Perkins, CEO of Breault Research Organization (BRO), provider of ASAP™ optical modeling software. “It’s still physics and optical engineering, and it still requires some talent. The challenge is to try not to intimidate a new user, but to explain as succinctly as possible that this is not like learning Excel.”

What Users Really Want

Other than a very complicated program that’s very easy to use, customers are looking for specific functionality and interoperability with other software programs. “In general, everybody is trying to find the best way to provide interoperability. This has been problematic in the past, because CAD programs don’t know anything about optics,” explained Gregory. “There is information that’s required to do optical analysis that is not captured in CAD programs.”

“Twenty years ago, companies didn’t take their mechanical engineer and say, ‘Today, you’re going to design a lens.’ But today, it happens all the time.” Richard N. Pfisterer Photon Engineering

 

While data can be sent back and forth from CAD to the optical package, something gets lost. Said Gregory, “When going from an optical program to a CAD program, what’s lost are optical properties and you have the problem that some surfaces in optics are only approximated in CAD programs.”

Photon Engineering is developing features that let users export models out of their software to other packages. “People expect that our software can read anyone else’s files,” said Pfisterer. “But each software has its own idiosyncrasies. We’re trying to provide customers with bi-directional translation ability.”

“It’s critical that the information is shared throughout the product design, so you need multiple disciplines, and that makes CAD that much more important,” said Perkins. “Most companies don’t have time to, nor should they have to, redesign for each discipline.” BRO has chosen to work with industry-standard file formats to ensure that product design maintains its original form and function, added Perkins.

Because engineers are not using optical software 100 percent of the time, interoperability is even more important, according to Nicholson. “Even the most dedicated optical designer only spends about 25 percent of their time doing direct optical design. The ability to talk to other programs is essential.” He explained that Zemax supports CAD file formats and works with vendors of other programs to enable data to be exchanged easily.

Gregory agrees that being able to move from one environment to another gives a vendor an advantage, but he’s convinced that you can’t have one software that does everything. “We’re looking at ways of adding flexibility so that people can solve the problems that, as a vendor, we cannot anticipate.”

In terms of functionality, customers are looking for more specific tools to perform their specific tasks. “Our customers want pre-defined solutions,” said Pfisterer. “We’ve found that our user base doesn’t want a general tool. They want specific tools for the tasks they need to do.”

Market Trends

As the user base grows in experience, the tools they use must keep pace. In the past, said Perkins, optical engineering was divided into micro and macro optical problems. Today, the market is asking for micro optical analysis with macro optical analysis so “users can analyze either type or size of problem with an accurate representation of light analysis. Our libraries,” she said, “are a challenge, because we have to have someone who, day-in and day-out, stays abreast of architectural lighting to create the libraries.”

“We are looking at ways of adding flexibility so that people can solve the problems that, as a vendor, we cannot anticipate.” G. Groot Gregory Lambda Research Corp.

 

Other software features such as photorealistic rendering and optimization also are at the top of users’ wish lists. “Photorealistic rendering is important,” said Nicholson, “but equally important is the ability to zoom in on detail and look at things in more of a wireframe way to see more directly what’s going on. When you think about animators, for instance, they work first with wireframe models of the characters and then put the solid detail and texturing on afterwards.”

“The designer’s purpose is to develop a new product, and optimization is essential for that,” according to Hilbert. “Solving five simultaneous nonlinear equations in your head is something people are ill-suited for. It’s a given that if you have an imaging package, it has optimization.”

Hilbert stressed the importance of optimization for illumination systems, and why it is a key technological innovation in illumination system design. “While optimization has long been required for imaging systems, it’s only now becoming available for illumination systems. As its use becomes more prevalent, the sophistication and quality of illumination systems will advance more rapidly,” he added.

The trend towards more powerful computers to run optical programs continues to be an important one for vendors, as they wait for 64-bit computing, multiple processors, and other hardware- related advances. The key is to help users solve even larger problems even faster.

“I’m not sure we’re doing a service by portraying optical software as being super-easy. It’s still physics and optical engineering, and it requires some commitment.” Kathleen Perkins Breault Research

“Multi-processors will be a bigger thing than 64-bit computing. It’s something that’s real, and it’s something people can do today,” according to Pfisterer. “It’s not something they have to wait two years for.”

“We haven’t yet found a point where users are happy with the amount of processing power they’ve got,” said Nicholson. “That is an insatiable appetite, and as computer power goes up, what people are able to do increases. Now, you can do stray light analysis and full opto-mechanical analysis. Users are doing things now they couldn’t have done ten years ago.”

“We haven’t yet found a point where users are happy with the amount of processing power they have. That is an insatiable appetite.” Dr. Mark Nicholson Zemax Development Corp.