SYNOPSYS™ Software > Customer Feedback
Here are some of the comments we have received from satisfied SYNOPSYS users:
Don Dilworth is one of the very best optical designers that I have met in my 50 year career. That is partly due to the incredibly powerful design program that Don has written, over many decades. Its artificial intelligence features are a wonder to learn about and it makes the designer's job very much easier and more efficient. Tasks that may take days to do on competing programs can be done much faster with Don's program. The most powerful feature of all is Don's optimization routine, which can run circles around all of its competitors. This is partly due to his use of pseudo-second derivatives in his optimization program, which results in very fast convergence, no stagnation, and deeper minima than with competing programs. Don's great skill as a designer coupled with his amazing program is an unbeatable combination. But his program by itself can be a major empowering tool for any designer.
… David Shafer
Fairfield CT
I am relatively new to the field of lens /optical design and so far I have used both SYNOPSYS and Zemax. My first impression is that SYNOPSYS is far superior when it come to lens optimization, and more versatile in editing lenses. I am very impressed by the fact that when editing a lens in SYNOPSYS, one can use either the radius or the curvature of the surface. As for the optimization, it is faster, robust and easier with SYNOPSYS.
… Jean Michel Taguenang, PhD
Huntsville AL
Zemax has been working on this lens (a 270 deg fisheye) for days and the best I can do is about 10 waves PV. In half an hour with SYNOPSYS I’m down to 1 wave. I can only imagine how fast things will go when I really get to know the program!
Steve Eckhardt
"I have told you before, but let me reiterate again, that this optical software is by some odds the best I have heard of."
… T.R. Whitney, CA
"The young people at ___ are trying to create ZEMAX models of my SYNOPSYS systems. With global coordinates in SYNOPSYS and only "coordinate breaks" in ZEMAX, they are getting a new appreciation for their chosen tool. The system has no plane of symmetry and includes a K-mirror to de-rotate the image seen through the high power laser pointer/tracker. SYNOPSYS handles the problem very nicely, of course."
… William Swantner, NM
Let me commend you on an excellent program. Before finding SYNOPSYS, I had a look at KDE (hard-to-learn interface, not windows oriented, …), Zemax (not nearly as easy to use as SYNOPSYS, and more $$$ for the same features), Beam 3/4 (nowhere near enough features) and Optics Lab (again, not enough features).
… R. Lee Hawkins, NC
"I have used six different optical design programs; yours has won the competition. I am studying the published work of David Shafer. The graphics front end of SYNOPSYS lends itself very well to his approach. … The net effect is lower cost."
… Roger Whitmer, Pittsfield MA
"I am so glad to have SYNOPSYS because it permits me to underbid the competition on fixed priced jobs while simultaneously permitting me to make about twice my regular hourly rate."
… W.S., Albuquerque NM
“While I am used to OSLO and other programs, yours has by far and away the best tolerancing. I hate having to create a sensitivity table etc. I love being able to just put in a drop of Strehl of 0.25 and go. I built a 5-element lens using your tolerancing and it seemed to be right on the money. On my Athlon, tolerancing takes less than a minute to do everything ….”
… John A Gibson, USA
“I find your program to be best program for optimization available on the market ….”
… Andrè Reitmann,
"SYNOPSYS’ optimization method works the best of any program that I have used, and the graphics are outstanding."
… M. Hatch, Lexington MA
"We are most impressed with the performance of the SYNOPSYS optical design and analysis program and with the services of Mr. Dilworth. The program contains features which give it great power and flexibility, such as the ‘Artificial Intelligence’ mode of operation. The work we have done in the few months that we have had the SYNOPSYS program could never have been done as easily with CODE-V. Mr. Dilworth provided instant advice as problems arose."
…J. Bolton, Greenbelt MD