- Improve any design requiring chromatic or thermal corrections with proper glass choice
- Synopsys’ Glass Expert automates the process within hours instead of days/weeks of manual selection by a designer
- K2 Extensions saves additional time by integrating Glass Expert and adding a multiple lists per element feature – avoids multiple runs! Read more on our blog Optical System Design and Glass Expert: Work Smarter, Not Harder
Define multiple lists using K2 Extensions with CODE V's Glass Expert
K2 EXTENSIONS POWERED BY CODE V OPTICAL DESIGN SOFTWARE
K2 Extensions adds multi-lists to CODE V’s Glass Expert
While the automation of CODE V’s Glass Expert is a very powerful feature, there are times when the optical design has different requirements on glass material for different elements. Elements that are exposed to the environment will require more durability than elements protected within the housing. Aspheric elements will go through a molding process that requires different materials than standard spherical elements. These situations and others require different lists with Glass Expert, and without K2 Extensions, users must set up multiple runs.
Now with the multi-list ability provided by the K2 Extensions, users can set up a different glass list for any combination of elements, and any number of lists. This means the above lens design scenario can be achieved in a single run, which can be accomplished overnight. The designer is able to avoid multiple runs making the process much more efficient.
Step-by-Step Instructions: How to run CODE V’s Glass Expert with K2 Extensions
- Use an existing script or our easy to use UI for optimization constraints
- Create a list of glasses from multiple catalogs, and assign to specific elements in the design
- Repeat for as many glass list / element combinations as desired
- Click choices for run-time Glass Expert limits on cost, weight, and transmission
- Run it and go grab some coffee…
Is your lens corrected for chromatic aberrations?
This is a question lens designers must answer on every design project (with refractive elements of course). The question of how can chromatic aberration be corrected requires an optical engineer to get out their glass map, and make choices on index and dispersion characteristics to balance chromatic aberration correction. While global optimization algorithms in an optical lens design software do a great job at finding design forms for much of the required dispersion correction, It has been proven that a specific tool like CODE V’s Glass Expert achieves the best results.
The algorithm automates the process of substituting hundreds and even thousands of glass choices to improve performance. Experiences with CODE V’s Glass Expert have shown that the many glass options available in standard catalogs, do not present a problem for the automated algorithm where a human might miss due to fatigue. This makes the CODE V Glass Expert: Optimized Glass Selection process the ultimate tool for any optical design and analysis software when it comes to dispersion correction, including secondary color correction. And rest assured that with the continual CODE V Glass Catalog Updates, designers will have access to the most up-to-date and verified glass material data from every major vendor.
John Rogers, the original author of Glass Expert and Senior Scientist at Synopsys’ Optical Solutions Group, gives a nice background on some of the theory that Glass Expert is based on the SPIE Proceedings Paper “Secondary color correction and tolerance sensitivity: What can you get away with?”
Use Any Combination of Glass Candidates in One Single Run
- Specify different glass lists for one or more elements
- Use moldable glass types for aspheres
- Restrict larger elements to glasses available in large pressings
Does the lens in your optical design need correction for thermal effects?
When correcting for chromatic aberrations, glass dispersion characteristics can also be combined with expansion effects for an introduction to passive athermalization. Designing for the athermalization of optical systems in infrared is a popular application as well as the visible spectrum. This includes the design of athermalized infrared telephoto lens, or when designing athermal lenses for LWIR systems.
References can be found for visual methods to make these choices in the SPIE paper Graphically selecting optical components and housing material for color correction and passive athermalization by Katie Schwertz, Dan Dillon, and Scott Sparrold.
The process can still be automated with CODE V’s Optical Design Software and tools like Glass Expert. There is much more complexity involved for correct operation over temperature, but using Synopsys Optical Solutions Group’s ENVPIK algorithm, coupled with the Athermalization feature in K2 Extensions, setup is a breeze. The best way to simplify lens design with CAD software is to use K2 Extensions with CODE V Optical Design Software. The CODE V software price and valuable features gets optical designers access to the most advanced tools, such as Glass Expert. The combination of K2 Extensions and CODE V enhances productivity even further as you become a power user of the software.
CODE V's Glass Expert with K2 Extensions for the Power User
✓ Update CODE V with the latest Glass Catalog released in March 2020
✓ Download A Free 30-Day Trial of K2 Extensions for CODE V
✓ Gain access to an easy-to-navigate interface and multiple features to improve your design
✓ Open Glass Expert, select User-defined lists option
✓ Create as many glass lists as desired, and assign to desired elements