Seeking Affordable Raytrace Software for Throughput

[fsonnichsen]

This is somewhat of an extension of tosik's recent post.

I work a bit with weak optical signals for PMTs and spectrometers and I am always trying to optimize the light collected by a system. Galilean collimators, grin lenses, Keplerian telescopes and other constructs are useful for capturing the most light and focusing it on a detector.

I have used geometrical ray trace programs to check my lab work but a lot of them don't seem to have features to report the final output signal with respect to the input aperture. Usually you can trick the graphics or do something else to accomplish this, however does anyone have experience using a product for under $500 that explicitly does this?

thanks
Fritz

 

[eljose79]

Hello Fritz,

Thank you for sharing your experience with optimizing weak optical signals. It sounds like you have a lot of knowledge and experience in this area.

In terms of software that can explicitly report the final output signal with respect to the input aperture, I would recommend looking into Zemax OpticStudio. This software is widely used in the optics industry and has features specifically designed for ray tracing and analyzing optical systems. It does come with a cost, but there is a student version available for under $500.

Another option could be Optiwave OptiSystem, which also has ray tracing capabilities and offers a free trial version for testing. It may have the reporting features you are looking for.

I hope this helps and good luck with your research and optimization efforts!