Illumination Design Softwares

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What illumination/non-sequential ray-tracing softwares do you personally like using?

For one of my classes, I have to use at least one (such as TracePro, FRED, ASAP, and LightTools) for a project. I’ve have some experience in LightTools and am considering exclusively using this software package alone, but am also thinking about learning a new one to expand my breadth.

Beyond the fulfillment of this project, I’m interested in obtaining skills that would be useful in my future career, or ones that would be marketable to potential future employers.
Let me know about your experiences have been like! :slight_smile:

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I would recommend LightTools as a starting program because it has been widely used in industry (as far as I know), easy to use for simple simulation, and is linked with Code V.

Also, I think if you are familiar with one program, leaning other program is getting much easier because the most difficult part of optics program is optics knowledges, not UI. For example, if you know how to use Opticstudio, you can lean Code V really quick.

So, if there is no specific requirement to use a specific program, you can stick with one program during your grad program.

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I personally prefer Light Tools, in my experience it handles integration with CAD well, is reasonably easy to perform basic required analysis. While I struggled to get it working, I have heard that optimization is strong in Light Tools as well. I will defer to @SpireStarter as she is the expert illumination designer I know.

Also, I think if you are familiar with one program, leaning other program is getting much easier because the most difficult part of optics program is optics knowledges, not UI. For example, if you know how to use Opticstudio, you can lean Code V really quick.

Ha! I happen to disagree with this sentiment, for me learning the different UIs can be tedious, so when I find one I like I tend to stick with it. That is one reason I never went too strongly into FRED, but, I will say that FRED is in very high demand in industry, where it is hard to find skilled FRED designers. Hope that helps!

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This is such a great question! Thanks for asking it, @henryquach.

Getting multiple simulation tools on your resume is a great asset! Not having enough definitely hampered my job search progress during my sub 5 years industry experience mark. I was specifically told this by hiring managers.

I’ve had to speed-learn LightTools, TracePro and Photopia (at the same time!) when I needed to 1. produce a working design when I immediately started working at a company and 2.) make a recommendation to upper management on which sw they should purchase.

From that experience especially, I would have to agree with @lrgraves and disagree with @hkang on the ease of learning a new program! It’s not easy, and even after you have a hang of the new sw, you’ll often get into situations where you have to dig into the specfics on how each sw calculates each part of the ray path. What look like minor, inconsequential differences here can make the difference between a design that passes a regulation and one that does not.

Out of the programs you mentioned, Henry, I’d say ASAP is the one I ran into most in industry. TracePro would be second.

FRED I saw at only one company and it was just this one dude who refused to use ASAP cuz he thought FRED was the bom. I thought it was not, in fact, the bom. I think @lrgraves has fonder feelings for FRED but I wasn’t really impressed when I tried to learn on a trial version about 8 years ago. But, of course, that was a while ago, so maybe it’s fancier now.

If you need to create geometry, as you often do in illumination design, LightTools is great - for the most part I can get by today with just LT and no separate CAD package, so long as I’m working with an ace ME who can turn my mess of geometry into something beautiful – outside of the functional surfaces.

If you have, say, SolidWorks already and are comfortable with it, I’d say ASAP would be a good one to move to next. I see ASAP used often in industry not just for design, but for separate job functions that just exist for things like stray light analysis.

However, if you need to create geometry and don’t have access to a CAD program for you next project, TracePro might be better. It’s definitely not as easy to create structures in TracePro as with LightTools, but it’s a lot better than what you have (last I played with it many years ago) in ASAP.

Otherwise, if you can get your hands on one of the SolidWorks plug-in type programs, that might be nice to check out. Breault’s (ASAP maker) plug-in-aka-“add-in” version is called APEX http://www.breault.com/software/about-apex

Again, though, you’d also need a SolidWorks license for this. There are a lot of other plugins for SolidWorks with other optics sw, by the way! There is one for Zemax, LightTools, LucidShape… etc.

In any case, yeah, get as many sw programs as you can on your resume! Best of luck to you.