Ray Tracing Data Analysis

The primary method of analyzing the results of ray-tracing in non-sequential systems is by using detector objects. When a ray hits a detector object, its position, angle, energy and optical path length are all stored so that the following analyses can be produced via the Detector Viewer analysis feature. Zemax can produce radiometric and photometric analyses. The list shows the photometric equivalents in parentheses:

1. Incoherent Irradiance (Incoherent Illuminance)
2. Coherent Irradiance (Coherent Illuminance)
3. Coherent Phase
4. Radiant Intensity (Luminous Intensity)
5. Radiance in position space (Luminance in position space)
6. Radiance in angle space (Luminance in angle space)

  The Volume Detector object additionally gives:

1. Incident Flux
2. Absorbed Flux
3. Absorbed Flux/Unit Volume

in whatever units (radiometric or photometric) the flux is measured in.

Rays can also be saved to a ray database for subsequent analysis. Flexible filters allow you to define criteria that rays must meet (like 'show all rays that scatter from object 3, and then reflect from object 40, and then hit detector object 15') This allows subsets of rays to be easily generated without repeating the ray-tracing calculation. The ray sets can be analyzed individually and can also be used to define source data files.

All detector data can be analyzed within Zemax, and can be read into the merit function for optimization and tolerancing. Data can also be read directly into ZPL, the built-in programming language within Zemax, and to external programs like MATLAB® or Excel.