WHITE PAPER. Get optical products to market faster using modern virtual prototyping. By Mark Nicholson and Cort Stinnett

Transcription

1 WHITE PAPER Get optical products to market faster using modern virtual prototyping By Mark Nicholson and Cort Stinnett

2 Get optical products to market faster using modern virtual prototyping 1 Introduction Companies developing cutting-edge optical products from virtual reality to autonomous vehicles can gain an enormous competitive advantage by getting their products to market ahead of their competitors. This first-to-market strategy is putting increased pressure on product development schedules. One of the biggest challenges is repeated failed physical prototypes, which often cause design delays and significant unplanned expenses. Better coordination between optical and mechanical engineers is critical to removing this roadblock. Outdated workflows limit team collaboration and compromise design integrity Optical and mechanical engineers play key roles in the design process. Successful optical product development relies on their close collaboration to turn an optical design into reality, yet it is common for optical and mechanical engineers to use different tools and work in separate environments. About 20 years ago, the ability to share optical designs as STEP, IGES, or STL files was introduced to the optical product development process to enable communication between optical and mechanical engineers. The optical engineer could export lenses and ray bundles in these CAD file formats, and then send them to the mechanical engineer to design the surrounding mechanical components. At the time, this process was revolutionary in improving collaboration between optical and mechanical engineers. However, disparities in the engineers software environments and file formats make sharing information and design decisions inefficient and arduous. The workflow hinges on data exported as static file formats, which can compromise the integrity of the design because materials, coatings, tolerances, and other critical design data are stripped away. Because of these limitations, optical product development has been almost entirely linear. Optical engineers design optical systems to meet their specifications, then hand off static files to the mechanical engineer to package. However, mechanical engineers cannot accurately predict how the mechanical components will affect the performance of the optical system, nor can they easily send completed designs back to optical engineers for final validation. Failures in physical prototypes or production impact schedules and budgets Any problems with the complete design are typically detected by creating a physical prototype or worse by sending the design to manufacturing. Catching problems this late in the product development process drives up costs and can introduce delays in product release dates. It can also sacrifice a company s competitive advantage and top-line revenue.

3 Get optical products to market faster using modern virtual prototyping 2 Without optical data and tools to analyze and validate the optomechanical design, mechanical engineers are flying blind. This limitation is especially significant for optical designs, since many require extremely high precision. Even subtle changes to the optical or mechanical system can cause failures in a physical prototype. 150x Cost of change Typically, physical prototypes require custom-built hardware. A single prototype can take weeks to create and cost tens of thousands of dollars or more. The organizational disruption caused by problems with physical prototypes can bleed over to other products, when critical resources must be re-allocated to solve unexpected problems. Figure 1 shows the dramatic benefits of identifying and correcting errors early in the design process, and the exponentially higher price of correcting errors during later phases. Cost 50x 20x 1x Concept Development Test/Pre-production Production New product development phases FIGURE 1: Correct design problems early when changes are much less costly. (Source: QualityInspection.org) High risk of failure causes stress on the team This linear workflow has been used for years and is well understood, but it requires many manual steps, relies on incomplete information, and often ends in failure in the physical prototype or production phase. These conditions can create stress within the team, loss of productivity, interpersonal conflict, morale issues, mistrust, and employee churn. Teams have struggled with this process for decades. Throw ing money at the problem is not the best solution.

4 Get optical products to market faster using modern virtual prototyping 3 Modern virtual prototyping A new workflow is now possible with modern virtual prototyping. This product development process uses software to analyze design performance, explore what-if scenarios, and answer questions about a design without physically building it. Optical and mechanical engineers are able to work on the same design in their preferred environments, so the fidelity of the design is maintained throughout the process. Modern virtual prototyping links the preferred software design tools used by the optical engineer with the preferred design tools used by the mechanical engineer. By using the same virtual prototype for design and simulations, optical and mechanical engineers can create a complete model of a product and validate the effectiveness of the design. Many common problems, such as beam clipping and stray light contamination, are easily identified. Modern virtual prototyping helps optical and mechanical engineers design, communicate, and collaborate on building the product right the first time by flagging potential problems early in the product development process, instead of triaging failures in a physical prototype or worse, on the manufacturing line. It often reduces the number of development iterations, which can save significant time and money. FIGURE 2: Modern virtual prototyping quickly identified beam clipping in this 37mm Heliar. Designing for manufacture is a critical aspect of any successful product and must be considered carefully at each phase of a project. The optical product must meet performance requirements while ensuring that it can be manufactured reliably and at a reasonable cost. By using modern virtual prototyping tools, critical data on performance, materials, coatings, dimensions, and tolerances are maintained throughout the process. Figure 3 shows an example of the manufacturing information that is shared between optical and mechanical engineers. Figure 2 shows the cross-section of a 37mm Heliar lens system. The design was created by an optical engineer and a mechanical engineer using modern virtual prototyping tools. The mechanical engineer could quickly see that the beam path was clipped on the back edge of the mechanical housing in the CAD package. Correcting the problem and validating the solution was a two-minute fix in the virtual prototype. If this problem had been discovered in a physical prototype or during manufacturing, it would have cost weeks in project delays and tens of thousands of dollars. FIGURE 3: This lens designed in OpticStudio (on the left) is the same design the mechanical engineer works with in LensMechanix (on the right). The design fidelity is maintained as the product moves from engineering to manufacturing.

5 Get optical products to market faster using modern virtual prototyping 4 Modern virtual prototyping is being used today by leading companies in a broad array of industries, such as virtual and augmented reality, optical components, scientific instruments, applied research, defense, and biomedical. The results have been remarkable, with better designs, fewer failures, and faster time to market. Zemax is leading the way in modern virtual prototyping For more than 25 years, industry leaders in optics and illumination have relied on Zemax for cutting-edge optical design and simulation software. OpticStudio includes a comprehensive set of design tools, each aligned with key steps in the optical design process. It combines complex physics and interactive visuals to simulate, analyze, optimize, and tolerance optical systems. As the market leader in optical design software, Zemax is ideally positioned to solve many of the challenges that are downstream from optical design. In early 2016, Zemax launched LensMechanix, a SOLIDWORKS Certified Gold Partner add-in for mechanical engineers who design optomechanical systems. LensMechanix simplifies optomechanical product development by bringing the core physics of OpticStudio into the SOLIDWORKS environment, which smooths transitions between optical and mechanical design. Mechanical engineers load OpticStudio design files into SOLIDWORKS with exact optical prescriptions plus tolerance, material, and coating information without any file format conversions or data loss. After designing mechanical components using the familiar SOLIDWORKS design tools, mechanical engineers run ray traces to analyze how light travels through the optomechanical system. By including ray tracing in the mechanical environment, the mechanical engineer can immediately see any degradation of the optical performance caused by the mechanical design, without requiring expensive prototypes to fill in the analysis gaps. FIGURE 4: A mechanical engineer used LensMechanix to create this SOLIDWORKS model of a laser system built in OpticStudio. The virtual prototype helped him find and resolve problems caused by the mechanical geometry before building a physical prototype. When mechanical engineers are ready to send the design to the optical engineer for final validation, LensMechanix users can simply save the complete assembly as an OpticStudio file and send it to the optical engineer. The optical engineer can open the file in OpticStudio and verify results or make changes to the fully defined optomechanical system.

6 Get optical products to market faster using modern virtual prototyping 5 Optical and mechanical engineers can now see the impact of each other s work directly because they are working on the same virtual prototype. Together, OpticStudio and LensMechanix create a modern virtual prototyping solution. FIGURE 5: The Zemax modern virtual prototyping solution

7 Get optical products to market faster using modern virtual prototyping 6 Summary Modern virtual prototyping is changing the way companies develop products. Today, leading companies have moved away from a linear process in which the optical and mechanical engineers create separate designs with little design continuity to a parallel design environment, in which design fidelity is maintained throughout the workflow. By collaborating on a shared virtual prototype, optical and mechanical engineers can quickly identify and correct design errors early in the design phase. Getting the product right early in the design phase results in higher top-line revenue, reduced cost, and faster time to market. For more information, go to Zemax.com or contact Sales@Zemax.com Mark Nicholson Chief Executive Officer Mark has been with Zemax for over 20 year and holds a PhD in Plasma Spectroscopy from Imperial College, University of London and a Bachelor s degree in Physics, also from Imperial College. When he s not testing the latest beta or working on business strategy, he s playing his guitar or riding his motorcycle through the countryside. Cort Stinnett General Manager of New Ventures Division Cort joined Zemax in His background in engineering coupled with his knack for market analysis gives him insight into customer needs and where the market is heading. Cort holds a Bachelor s degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Kansas and an MBA from Creighton University. When he s not entrenched in market analysis, you can find him dodging cars as he commutes by bike.

8 About Zemax Zemax is an optical and mechanical design software and services company founded in 1991 by Dr. Ken Moore. Our industry-leading products, OpticStudio and LensMechanix, help scientists, engineers, researchers, and students turn their optical and illumination systems ideas into reality. We touch nearly every optical system manufactured today, including cell phone cameras, autonomous-vehicle sensor systems, and intraocular lenses even imaging systems for the Mars Rover. The cornerstones of our success are rock-solid physics architecture, a culture of excellence and innovation, and the insistence on listening to our customers. We deliver unmatched value in the industry and have the largest, most passionate user base in the industry. Sales@Zemax.com Copyright Zemax LLC. All rights reserved. LensMechanix and OpticStudio are registered trademarks of Zemax LLC.