ABOUT THIS BOOK

This volume and the accompanying SYNOPSYS™ software on mini-CDROM is a supplement to Joseph M. Geary’s Introduction to Lens Design, a text that has meet with wide acceptance in classrooms and as a self-study guide for engineers, scientist and others wishing to develop an understanding of computer-aided optical design. Its purpose is to provide another software alternative, SYNOPSYS, for the book’s practical problems, which are worked with ZEMAX®. NOTE: This book DOES NOT replace Introduction to Lens Design, it is inteneded to be used along with it for the lens design theory.

SYNOPSYS is a full-featured, professional level optical design program that users of this book can run in demo mode; a limit of 12 surfaces in that mode is sufficient to work the problems found in Introduction to Lens Design. Other than the limit on the number of surfaces, there are no restrictions on the program, which is fully functional and without time limit. Updates may be downloaded at www.osdoptics.com. Here are some of the unique features found in SYNOPSYS:

· Friendly user interface, using simple commands as well as extensive dialogs and menus. A few key strokes can often do the same thing as drilling down through a lengthy menu tree.
· A graphical interface, the SketchPad™, to visualize the lens and its image, with sliders to change almost any lens parameter while you watch the effect. Insert and delete elements and prisms, split and bend elements and spin a 3-D image around, all in real time.
· Powerful PSD optimization algorithm, often more than 20 times faster than the DLS method used in other programs. Simple input controls every aspect of the lens or image during optimization.
· Artificial Intelligence to create new commands or plot almost anything against anything.
· A CAM feature that lets you adjust the curve fit while you evaluate image quality, using a slider to smoothly zoom your lens.
· Statistical tolerancing to a specified statistical confidence level, with Monte-Carlo verification and fabrication adjustment emulation.
· Extensive graphical output showing every aspect of the lens and its image.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Donald C. Dilworth is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S, physics) and since 1961 has been actively engaged in optical design and computer software for lens optimization. At the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, he developed computational techniques for optical and thin-film design, which were applied to the design of the optical navigation equipment for the Apollo project. He was then employed by Itek Corporation as Senior Optical Physicist, responsible for designing a variety of advanced optical systems including aerial photographic lenses used on the recently declassified Corona project as well as aspheric systems, multilayer dielectric coatings, and a submarine periscope. He next directed the optical design department at Baus Optics, Inc., where he developed and implemented techniques for the design of geometric and thin-film optics. As senior principal development engineer at the Honeywell Radiation Center he was responsible for conceptual and detailed design, tolerancing, and analysis of numerous infrared and visible-light systems, including startrackers, periscope optics and FLIRs.