Zemax announced the latest release of their flagship software, OpticStudio®, and OpticsBuilder™. Continuing our commitment to deliver regular updates to our customers, Zemax will deliver three product releases in 2021, the first in January (21.1) followed by May (21.2) and September (21.3) releases. OpticStudio 21.1 starts the year by empowering the growing role of diffractive optics within the augmented reality and heads-up display markets. This release also adds new tolerance operands for users to align designs more easily to real-world assembly methods. In addition, this release debuts two new feature experiments that improve wide-angle ray aiming for autonomous vehicles and provide a new optimization algorithm. OpticsBuilder 21.1 improves optomechanical assembly analysis by allowing users to add sources and detectors directly in CAD.
“I am delighted to start the new year by providing new functionality to our Zemax community,” said Dr. S. Subbiah, Chief Executive Officer of Zemax. “Our customers continue to innovate by pushing the boundaries of traditional optical design. By providing native diffractive optics support within OpticStudio and improved design analysis within OpticsBuilder, our users can continue to push past current design constraints. This release is the start to many exciting announcements coming in 2021.”
OpticStudio: New Diffraction Calculation
Diffractive optics are playing an increasingly important role in the innovations taking place within the optics and photonics industry. OpticStudio users are leading this innovation. In support of their work, we have added the Kogelnik diffraction efficiency calculation into the 21.1 product update. This provides one of the most comprehensive solutions for modeling the role of diffractive optics within a simulation platform. We are excited to see how the Zemax community continues to pioneer the role of diffractive optics within the augmented reality and heads-up display markets.
OpticStudio: New Tolerance Setups Operands
In 2020, OpticStudio delivered new functionality focused on improving our users’ ability to design and manufacture optical products. OpticStudio 21.1 continues this theme by introducing new tolerancing operands. With the addition of our ROLL tolerance setup operands and our Radial Decenter operand, users can easily setup tolerancing to match real-world assembly methods.
OpticsBuilder: New Analysis Functionality
OpticsBuilder 21.1 improves how users analyze optical systems. With this release, users are now able to include additional sources and detectors to their optomechanical design for further analysis within their CAD platform. Users may also view an incoherent irradiance report for an object as a detector for additional insights when building their optical products in CAD. This release also gives users access to the full Zemax glass catalog for more options when analyzing designs within their CAD platform.
OpticStudio: Feature Experiments
Users will also notice that OpticStudio 21.1 includes a couple new feature experiments. These include new wide-angle ray aiming capabilities and a new optimization algorithm for pseudo second derivatives. These feature experiments are a preview to some of the features planned for our next release in May. We encourage users to try out these features and share their feedback with us.
