Zemax

Zemax is a software company known for developing optical design tools used by engineers to design, analyze, and optimize optical and illumination systems. Its flagship product, OpticStudio, provides an integrated environment for modeling imaging lenses, illumination optics, and complex freeform geometries.

OpticStudio supports both sequential and non-sequential ray tracing. Sequential tracing handles traditional lens systems where light follows a defined path, while non-sequential tracing models more complex scenarios such as stray light, scattering, and illumination components. The software includes optimization and tolerance analysis tools to improve performance metrics, such as image quality, brightness uniformity, and energy efficiency, and it offers physical optics propagation to account for diffraction effects. Users can manage materials, coatings, light sources, detectors, and supporting geometries, and they can import or create 3D CAD models as part of the optical assembly.

Automation and scripting are supported through macros and a Python API, allowing workflows to be automated and integrated into broader design environments. OpticStudio generates a range of outputs, including ray traces, spot diagrams, modulation transfer functions, field plots, and tolerance reports, to quantify design performance and manufacturability.

Zemax serves a wide array of industries, including imaging systems (cameras, microscopes, endoscopes), aerospace and defense, automotive lighting, consumer electronics, and medical devices. The tool is widely used in academia and industry for conceptual design, optimization, verification, and competitive benchmarking against other optical design packages.