Type (surface properties)

Surface type options are set in the Type section of the Surface Properties window. The Surface Properties can be reached by clicking the down arrow in the Surface Properties bar above the Lens Data Editor.

Surface Type

OpticStudio models planes, spheres, and conics; all of these surface types are grouped under the category of standard surface. On the surface properties dialog box is a list of surface types. Select the appropriate surface type from the drop down list. OpticStudio supports many different types of surfaces in addition to the standard surface. The types are discussed in SEQUENTIAL SURFACES (lens data editor)

Many optical designs only use the standard surface type.

If the surface type is "User Defined" then the surface shape and ray trace properties are defined in an external program linked into OpticStudio called a Dynamic Link Library, or DLL. This control selects which DLL the surface uses. See "User Defined" for more information. If the surface type is "Slide" then the bitmap image to apply to the surface is selected with this control.

Surface Color

By default, on the Shaded Model Layout plot, OpticStudio draws mirrors in green, and refractive and dummy surfaces in blue. The color of the surface as drawn on shaded models may alternatively be selected to be any of the colors defined in the Colors settings, available in the OpticStudio Preferences window, which can be displayed via a button in the System section of the Setup Tab.

Surface Opacity

If the opacity is set at 100%, then the surface will be rendered on the shaded model plot as a solid color, and the surface may fully obscure other surfaces from view. If the opacity is less than 100%, then the surface is partially transparent, which allows other surfaces to be visible through the partially obscure surface.

Row Color

This control chooses the color of the row in the Lens Data Editor for the surface. By default, glass surfaces, coordinate breaks, mirrors, and paraxial lenses are color coded. Any surface may use either no color, the default color, or a user defined color. The user defined colors are described in "Colors". The coloring of rows may be disabled, see the "Editors" section of the OpticStudio Preferences. The entire spreadsheet may be set to show default or no colors, see "Menu options".

Make Surface Stop

The system aperture is the overall system F/#, Entrance Pupil Diameter, Numerical Aperture, or Stop Size. Any of these 4 quantities is sufficient to define the other 3 for a particular optical system. The system aperture is used to define the object space entrance pupil diameter, which in turn is used to launch all rays. The system aperture is always circular. Rays may be vignetted after being launched by various surface apertures. There is only one system aperture, although there may be many surface apertures.

The stop surface may be any surface in the system, except for the object and image surfaces. To change the stop surface, select the "Type" tab and then click on the checkbox labeled "Make surface stop" and press OK. The dialog box will disappear and the surface now will display the "STO" label instead of the surface number. This control is grayed out if the surface is the object, image, or is already the stop surface.

It is important to define the stop surface such that the entrance pupil is on the same axis as the object surface. You can ensure this condition by placing the stop surface of the optical system before any coordinate breaks, obscuration decenters, holograms, gratings, or other components which can alter the optical axis. If your system is symmetric for rotations about the optical axis, then this limitation does not apply. Only systems that use surfaces which can tilt or decenter the optical axis should have the stop placed before any such surfaces. If coordinate breaks are used, but only to implement fold mirrors in an otherwise axial system, then the pupil locations will be correctly computed even if the stop is placed after the fold mirrors.

In certain systems it is not possible to place the aperture stop before coordinate breaks. In this case, ray aiming must be used. Ray aiming is discussed in "Ray Aiming".

Make Surface Global Coordinate Reference

The global coordinate reference surface may be specified in the Type section of the Surface Properties window, or in the Miscellaneous section of the System Explorer.

Global coordinates are defined by a rotation and translation from the local coordinates on each surface. The rotation matrix and the offset vector can be computed for any surface using any other surface as a global reference. The default reference surface is 1, but any other surface may be chosen. There are two exceptions. One exception occurs when the object is at infinity, and then 0 may not be the reference surface. The other exception is that a Coordinate Break surface may not be set as the Global Coordinate Reference Surface. The surface selected determines the global coordinate system origin location and orientation. The reference surface is also used to define the point of overlap for multiple zoom positions on the 3D layout plot.

See "Global Coordinate Reference Surface" for more information.

Surface Cannot Be Hyperhemispheric

OpticStudio normally detects if a surface must be hyperhemispheric (the surface continues past the maximum possible radial aperture and curves back toward the vertex to fill more than a hemisphere) to pass all rays. If this option is checked, the surface is not allowed to become hyperhemispheric. This switch should be used in conjunction with a floating or circular aperture to vignette any rays which intercept beyond the desired aperture.

Ignore This Surface

If checked, the surface will be ignored for most purposes. Ray tracing, analysis, layout plots, optimization, tolerancing and most other features will produce results as if the surface had been deleted. The purpose of this feature is to completely ignore surfaces, or groups of surfaces, particularly in multi-configuration lenses where optics are present in some configurations but not others. The multi-configuration operand IGNR can be used to change the ignore surface setting for each configuration.

When a surface is ignored, all properties of the surface are ignored; including radius, thickness, glass, apertures, surface tilts and decenters, coordinate break data, and refraction. However, the surface is not actually deleted, and therefore subsequent surfaces are not renumbered. The ignored surfaces retain their specific surface numbers. Some features which are or may be surface number specific, such as spot diagrams, can still be computed on the ignored surfaces. The resulting data will be for the first surface that is not ignored following the requested surface. Some features that list text data on a surface by surface basis may still list data for ignored surfaces, but the data on subsequent surfaces that are not ignored will be as if the ignored surfaces had been deleted.

Next:

• Draw (surface properties)