Calendar

Introduction to CODE V
March 19-23, 2007
Oct. 29-Nov. 2, 2007
Pasadena, California
Click here for details and to enroll

Optics and Photonics
Aug. 26-30, 2007
San Diego, CA
http://spie.org

Advanced Topics in CODE V November 5-9, 2007
Pasadena, California
Click here for details and to enroll

Quick Tip – CODE V Tolerancing: A Key to Product Cost Reduction

Why is accurate tolerancing of your lens model important? One word: cost. You can design the highest performance lens system possible, but you also have to be able to manufacture it with reasonable tolerances. CODE V's unique wavefront differential tolerancing feature, TOR, allows you to obtain information quickly about both individual tolerance sensitivities and an accurate performance prediction, including the effect of cross-terms. The reason TOR is so fast compared to traditional Monte Carlo methods is that the nominal system is ray traced once, and all the required information for further analysis is extracted by CODE V algorithms based on the wavefront differential analysis work of Hopkins & Tizani, King, and ORA Chief Scientist Matthew Rimmer (references to papers written by these authors are available in the CODE V Reference Manual chapter on Tolerancing). Performance metrics available in TOR include MTF, wavefront error, fiber coupling efficiency, polarization dependent loss, and chief ray distortion (the latter uses CODE V's TOD feature, which also uses wavefront differential analysis).

In addition to wavefront differential tolerancing in TOR, CODE V offers both finite difference tolerancing and Monte Carlo tolerancing methods. CODE V's TOLFDIF feature, used for finite difference tolerancing, and TOLMONTE feature, used for Monte Carlo tolerancing, also allow you to use any CODE V quantity as a performance metric. The TOR, TOLFDIF and TOLMONTE features are all available under the Analysis > Tolerancing menu item in CODE V's GUI:

There are several resources available on ORA's Customer Support Web Site (www.oraservice.com) to help users better understand the differences in CODE V's tolerancing features, as well as advice on when and how best to use each method.

• An ORA white paper, CODE V Tolerancing: A Key to Product Cost Reduction, which gives an excellent overview of the pros and cons of each method as well as the importance of accurate tolerance analysis, is available under CODE V Support > Technical Papers.
  

• Two 2006 IODC papers authored by ORA engineers that discuss creating tolerance-insensitive designs using CODE V's Global Synthesis optimization, Using Global Synthesis to Find Tolerance-Insensitive Design Forms and Designing Easily Manufactured Lenses Using a Global Method, are also available for download under CODE V Support > Technical Papers.
  

• Copies of several training material presentations on tolerancing are available under CODE V Support > Training Course Notes, including Topics in Tolerancing, a one-day training presentation that provides a comprehensive overview and examples of CODE V's tolerancing features.
  

• Several FAQs on Tolerancing, including several that were recently added, are available under Technical Support FAQs.

In addition to the resources available on ORA's Customer Support Web Site, the CODE V Technical Support Team is also available to answer your questions (service@opticalres.com).

In summary, the advanced tolerancing features provided by CODE V can help you maintain optical system performance while reducing costs during product development, and throughout the product life cycle.

CODE V 9.70 and Windows Vista

Although CODE V does not yet officially support Windows Vista™ (we plan to officially support it later this year), ORA's Software Testing Team has performed some initial testing on a preliminary version of Windows Vista Ultimate.  While early results indicate it is possible to run CODE V 9.70 under Windows Vista, there are a few key issues of which users need to be aware:

• Due to the increased security standards introduced in Windows Vista, users running CODE V 9.70 need to have Administrative privileges on their PC.
  

• Most CODE V Help features do not work under Windows Vista due to changes in the types of help systems supported by Vista. Note that the CODE V Electronic Document Library in Adobe® Acrobat® Portable Document Format (PDF) does work.
  

• Users with CODE V USB dongles will need to download the latest version of the USB driver, available on the Tech Support page of ORA's public Web site
  ( http://www.opticalres.com/TechSupport/index.html ).

Additional details on installing and running CODE V under Windows Vista are available in a new document written by ORA's Technical Support Team: Special Instructions for ORA Products on Microsoft® Windows Vista.  Our plan is to resolve these issues and fully support Windows Vista later this year.

Updates to ORA's Customer Support Web Site

The following additions have been recently made to ORA's Customer Support Web Site, www.oraservice.com, under CODE V Support:

• An ORA white paper, CODE V Tolerancing: A Key to Product Cost Reduction, which gives an excellent overview of the pros and cons of each method as well as the importance of accurate tolerance analysis, is available under Technical Papers.

• Several new FAQs on Tolerancing have been added under Technical Support FAQs > Tolerancing FAQs, including one on homogeneity tolerancing.

• A user-defined gradient (UDG) routine for modeling index changes simulated by homogeneity tolerancing in TOR, including an example lens sequence file, has been added under Macros and User-defined Feature Downloads.

• The February 2007 issue of CV Enews, which featured a tip and macro for calculating accurate dn/dt values for use in CODE V's Environmental Analysis (ENV), is available for download under CODE V Enews & Tips.

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