Achieve Ideal Optical Design Solutions with a Powerful Toolkit

CODE V optical design software empowers engineers to tackle optical design tasks with intuitive, intelligent tools to deliver better solutions faster. With accurate, built-in tolerancing, CODE V not only streamlines and accelerates optical designs, but also balances performance and manufacturing sensitivities to keep manufacturing costs low.

  • Speed time to market with Global Synthesis design optimization.
  • Get fast, accurate tolerancing for superior fabrication support.
  • Maximize design performance and control manufacturing costs with AI-optimized glass selection features.
  • Simulate and visualize optical system performance with fast 2D image simulation and comprehensive graphics capabilities, including 3D visualizations and diffraction-based image simulations.
  • Easily model unusual systems with non-sequential surface modeling.
CODE V optical design software allows you to model, analyze, optimize, and provide fabrication support for the development of optical systems. These systems include photographic, cinema, and zoom lenses, as well as free-space photonic devices and more. CODE V optical ray tracing software supports a broad range of imaging applications with a powerful and extensive toolkit for lens design.

Analysis Tools for a High-Quality, Efficient Lens Design

Overcome your toughest lens design challenges with CODE V software. For example, when testing a zoomable cell phone lens design, use the CODE V spot diagram analysis tool to show the geometric size from a single point on the image. The image simulation tool can show how an image will look when taken from the cell phone lens. With extensive built-in libraries of optical system modules and many tools to design and simulate, you can save time on your optical engineering projects and boost productivity with CODE V.

Key Features of CODE V

Beam Synthesis Propagation (BSP)

Achieve powerful, efficient diffraction analysis with BSP. Non-expert users can get expert results with minimal input, while advanced users have flexible control.
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Glass Expert

Speed up the design process by feeding your criteria into Glass Expert, which will automatically select the best set of glasses for your lens design.

Global Synthesis

Pick a ray-traceable point, select a merit function, and define constraints. Global Synthesis will deliver optimized solutions you can analyze and select.

Asphere design

Use Q-type polynomials to enable superior design optimization and tolerancing, which help ensure a cost-effective and manufacturable solution.

Image simulation

Get fast, accurate visual assessments of system image quality to communicate optical concepts and trade-offs during design evaluations.

Multi-environment coupling

CODE V multi-environment coupling models and optimizes athermalized spacer-based lens designs, considering refractive index and substrate changes due to temperature, pressure, and mounting variations.

MetaOptic Design Module

Design meta optical surfaces with the CODE V MetaOptic Design add-on to significantly enhance the performance and functionality of traditional lenses.

  • Enhance optical systems with advanced metalens technology.
  • Apply intricate patterns of meta-atoms to surfaces using sophisticated meta-atom modeling.
  • Use integrated tools to optimize metalens design and conventional refractive and reflective elements simultaneously.

Metalenses, like other diffractive elements, have the potential to become a powerful new tool in your optical engineering toolbox. With the MetaOptic Design module, you can combine ray tracing with electromagnetic field solvers to simplify imaging systems that include both conventional optics and metalenses.

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CODE V Optical Design Software – FAQ

CODE V is optical design software that provides engineers with intuitive, intelligent tools to deliver better solutions faster. With built-in features such as Global Synthesis, Beam Synthesis Propagation, and Glass Expert, along with accurate tolerancing and powerful design optimization, CODE V provides everything optical engineers need to design and simulate optical solutions.

Optical engineers use CODE V optical design software to model, analyze, optimize, and provide fabrication support for aerospace solutions, cameras, information display systems, microlithography, and photonics. More applications of CODE V include:

  • Infrared spectrometers
  • Segmented Cassegrain (mirror) telescopes
  • Beam synthesis propagation of segmented mirror systems
  • 3D visualization of a catadioptric system
  • Stellar interferometers
  • Coronagraphs
  • Interferometric telescopes
  • Cell phone lenses
  • Panoramic video systems
  • Fisheye and hyper-hemispherical fisheye lens simulation
  • Zoom lenses
  • Folded imagers
  • Head-mounted displays with eye-tracking
  • Lithography lens systems

Lens data

Number of supplied lens models 2400+, available via the New Lens Wizard or Patent Lens Search capability.
Number of surfaces 990
Number of wavelengths 21
Spectral weighting Yes
Number of zoom positions 99
Number of zoomed parameters 890 (most lens data can be zoomed)
Number of fields per zoom position
25
Number of MUL layers 1,000
Pupil specification options
  • Entrance pupil diameter
  • Numerical aperture at object
  • Numerical aperture at image
  • F/number at image
Field specification options
  • Field angle (degrees)
  • Object height
  • Image height (paraxial or real)
Wide angle mode with ray input angle Greater than 90 degrees
Vignetting factors +/-Y and +/-X at entrance pupil, defined for each field point
Lens dimension options Inches, mm, or cm
Afocal mode Perfect lens conversion to an imaging system or true afocal modeling with field-independent accommodation
Aperture stop Definable on any surface (chief ray iterated)
Chief ray specification Can be specified to hit any surface at any location (default is center of stop)
Telecentric object Yes
Number of through-focus positions 18
Environmental specifications
  • Temperature (default 20 degrees C)
  • Pressure (default 760 mm Hg)
Surface types
  • Sphere
  • Conic, Segmented conic, Superconic
  • Polynomial asphere (20th order, 30th order with odd-power terms)
  • Fresnel surface (with aspheric profile, on flat, curve, or cone substrate)
  • Anamorphic asphere (10th order)
  • Cylinder (X or Y)
  • Toroid (X or Y, with 10th order aspheric profile)
  • Spline, Extended spline
  • Other polynomials (Zernike, General XY polynomial)
  • Thermal gradient
  • Lens module
  • User-defined (via user-written subroutine)
Diffractive properties

Can be applied to any base surface:

  • Linear grating
  • Diffractive Optical Element (DOE)
  • Holographic Optical Element (HOE)
  • Scalar diffraction efficiency calculation also supported
Radius specification Radius or curvature
Radius solve types
  • Marginal or chief ray angle
  • Marginal or chief ray angle of incidence
  • Aplanatic (marginal or chief ray)
Thickness solve types
  • Marginal or chief ray height
  • Overall length (of surface group)
  • Edge thickness
  • Paraxial image location
  • Reduction ratio (sets object distance)
Pickups Yes (pickup from like or unlike parameters)
Glass types
  • Catalog glass
  • Fictitious (used for optimization; Nd and Vd specified; partial dispersion can also be specified)
  • Private catalog (1 to 21 wavelength/index pairs or dispersion formula)
Glass catalogs supplied Hikari, Sumita, Pilkington, Schott, Ohara, Hoya, Corning France, Kodak, NSG, and "Special Materials"
Gradient index Yes, several forms, including user-defined (via user-written subroutine)
Number of user-defined gradient coefficient 150
Glass property specifications Specific gravity, transmittance, price, partial dispersion (for fictitious glass)
Refractive mode options
  • Refract (fail on TIR)
  • TIR only (fail on refract)
  • TIR or refract (NSS surfaces only)
  • Reflect
Mirror substrate specifications Material, thickness, rear curvature
Aperture shapes Circular, and/or rectangular, and/or elliptical
Aperture types Clear aperture, obscuration, edge, hole
Aperture location on surface Can be rotated and/or decentered
Aperture combinations Multiple apertures allowed, can be ANDed or ORed (default is AND)
Decentrations/tilts 3-D tilts or decentrations allowed on any surface (can be defined locally or globally)
Decentration/tilt types Regular, reverse, decenter-and-return, bend, pure return
Non-sequential surfaces Yes
Non-sequential elements (predefined) Corner cube and roof
Refractive mode change Yes, on specified hit number (up to two changes per surface)
Lens arrays Yes, with uniform or user-specified spacings (all channels identical)
Surface coating options
  • Uncoated
  • Single layer MgF2 (default)
  • Multilayer (user-defined, via MUL option)
  • User-defined surface properties
  • Perfect refractive

* Coating thickness variations also supported

Apodization options Gaussian or user-defined (via FIL type interferogram file)
Surface deformation Attached surface interferogram
Wavefront deformation Attached wavefront interferogram (attached to a surface or to a pupil)
Polarization specifications
  • Polarization ellipse (polarized fraction, ratio, orientation, and handedness)
  • Jones vectors
  • Stokes parameters
Polarization operators
  • Retarders (standard or birefringent), polarizers
  • Faraday rotators, Jones matrix, and user defined
Uniaxial crystal birefringent ray tracing Yes
Intrinsic cubic crystal birefringent ray tracing Yes
Stress birefringence modeling Yes
Tolerance types Many forms (single surface and surface groups)
Number of tolerances Unlimited
Compensator types Any tolerance can be a compensator
Number of compensators Unlimited
Interferogram types
  • Wavefront
  • Surface deformation
  • Filter (apodization)
Interferogram locations Any surface or pupil
Interferogram orientation Can be scaled, decentered, rotated, or flipped in X or Y
User-defined features (via user-written subroutines)
  • Surface shape
  • Diffractive phase profile
  • Gradient index profile
  • Surface properties
  • Interferogram definition
  • User-defined subroutine

Lens operations

Scale lens Yes (many variations)
Flip surfaces Yes, in X or Y
Copy surfaces Yes (from current or stored lens)
Copy zoom position data Yes (can insert/delete individual zoom positions too)
Automatic data setting
  • Pupil specification (EPD, NA, NAO, FNO)
  • Centered or decentered apertures
  • Vignetting factors
Environmental scaling Yes, for temperature and pressure, including radial thermal gradients

System display options

OpenGL 3D rendering Yes, includes mouse interaction
Line drawings Yes, profiles, slices, perspective views
Lens element drawings
  • CODE V format
  • ISO10110 standard
  • Chinese National Standard
Tabular output Complete listing of all model information

Optimization

Number of optimization targets Unlimited
Number of variables 999
Number of variables plus constraints 10,000
Number of coupled components 700
Number of groups 40
Number of components in groups 80
Local optimization method Damped least squares
Global optimization method Global Synthesis (unique algorithm)
Constraint handling
  • Lagrange multipliers (default) or include in error function
  • Equality or bounded constraints supported
Constraint type categories
  • Optical definitions
  • Manufacturing and packaging
  • Paraxial ray trace data
  • 1st and 3rd order aberrations
  • Real ray trace data
  • Diffractive property controls
  • Surface parameter controls
  • User-defined constraints
Optimization controls Yes, many optional controls to impact convergence; ray grid definition, field, pupil, and wavelength weighting
Error function types
  • RMS spot size (default)
  • RMS OPD
  • Diffraction MTF
  • User-defined (including Zernike wave front terms)
  • Fiber coupling efficiency (including general beam propagation diffraction)
Automatic test plate fitting Yes
Cam calculation for zoom lenses Yes

Application programming interface

COM support Yes

Image analysis options

Diagnostic analysis options
  • First-order ray trace
  • Third-order and higher order aberration analysis
  • Real single ray trace (many types)
  • Aberration curves (transverse or OPD)
  • Field curves (astigmatism and distortion)
  • Pupil map (OPD over the pupil)
  • Field map (RMS spot, RMS wavefront, astigmatism, distortion, Zernike terms)
  • Gaussian beam analysis
  • Footprint analysis
  • Cat's eye plot
Geometrical analysis options
  • Spot diagram
  • Radial energy distribution
  • Geometrical MTF
  • Detector energy distribution
  • Scanned quadrant detector
  • Biocular analysis
  • Line spread function (knife-edge)
Diffraction analysis option
  • RMS wavefront error
  • Point spread function
  • Line spread function
  • Diffraction MTF
  • RMS wavefront error
  • Partial coherence analysis (1D and 2D images)
  • Fiber coupling efficiency
  • Diffraction beam propagation
  • 2D Image Simulation
Illumination analysis Yes

Tolerancing, fabrication support, and system analysis options

Tolerancing options
  • First/third order
  • RMS wavefront error/MTF
  • Chief ray distortion
  • User-defined on any performance criteria
  • Fiber coupling efficiency
  • Polarization-dependent loss

Fabrication support options

  • Cost analysis
  • Weight and center of gravity
  • CAD Export (IGES, STEP, SAT formats)
  • Alignment (via interface with measured interferograms)
System analysis options
  • Spectral analysis
  • System transmittance
  • Ghost image analysis (paraxial)
  • Narcissus (scanned IR systems)
  • Multilayer design program

Macro-PLUS

Number of variables Unlimited
Variable types Numeric and string
Arrays 1 or 2 dimensions (unlimited size)
Branching IF, ELSE IF, GOTO
Loops FOR, UNTIL, WHILE
Built-in functions
  • Mathematical (sin, cos, tan, etc.)
  • String (substring, concatenate, etc.)
  • Optical (sag, surface astigmatism, transformation matrix, Gaussian quadrature weights)
  • Ray trace
  • User-defined
  • FFTs
Input/Output Read/write (formatted or unformatted)
File interface Read, write, append (ASCII files)
Lens database access Yes
Spreadsheet capability Yes (Worksheet Buffer™)
Macro library Over 100 macros supplied

Product support

License terms Monthly or annual lease
Technical support Included at no extra cost
Software updates Included at no extra cost
Documentation updates Included at no extra cost

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