JFTR, Did you know that Skencil[0] vector editor (open-source app for Linux) formerly called Sketch[1], but actually there is another one Sketch[2] vector editor (proprietary app for macOS).
Sketch is not “by” Apple. It’s made by Bohemian Coding, though exclusively for macOS.
Edit: And I don’t really understand why it’s even relevant. Skencil changed it’s name in 2004, several years before the first release of Bohemian Coding’s Sketch.
I would love to try this project, but only Windows binaries are provided and there is apparently no build system; the provided Makefile only builds tests. I'm sure I could hack together a Makefile of my own, but is it worth the effort? It's not clear whether it's meant to run on Linux or not - most Windows-only projects don't even bother to provide a Makefile.
I'm a Zemax user. It's certainly used for serious design work, though it's also acknowledged that CodeV is more elaborate. Granted, I'm not designing high performance optics -- mostly stuff for measurement instruments. For me, since optics isn't even 100% of my job, it's hard to justify upping to CodeV.
It would be interesting to work somewhere with test engineers who can grok Zemax. My observation is that unless someone has a degree in optics or physics, they have little hope of understanding optics, and Zemax isn't nearly as user friendly as, say, Solid Works.
As I understand it, CodeV is more than just software -- your rental agreement gives you access to their team of optical engineers who also do general optics consulting. They will add features to their program if you need them, which could happen if you're doing something really innovative.
I dream of designing optics using Python, but I realize that I might be waiting a while for that.
It's a shame that Zemax recently went down the subscription route, but I suppose most users were already getting updates every year anyway.
I have a friend who is developing an optical train simulator in Python, but that's for a fairly niche astronomical use case (instruments for the ELT that haven't been built yet).
I've always been curious about the optical stuff in Mathematica (there is also Optica) which I think you get for free.
Otherwise in places I've worked we used Oslo and Fred (I think one is free if you don't save, so it's useful for quick tests). I know Zemax is used by the telescope folks in my department as well.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skencil
[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/sketch/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketch_(software)
Edit: And I don’t really understand why it’s even relevant. Skencil changed it’s name in 2004, several years before the first release of Bohemian Coding’s Sketch.
Thanks for correction. Just fixed in my comment above.
Year ago I was be able to produce AppImage[1] in my fork repo.
[0] https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/blob/master/.travis.yml
[1] https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous
[0] https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous
It would be interesting to work somewhere with test engineers who can grok Zemax. My observation is that unless someone has a degree in optics or physics, they have little hope of understanding optics, and Zemax isn't nearly as user friendly as, say, Solid Works.
As I understand it, CodeV is more than just software -- your rental agreement gives you access to their team of optical engineers who also do general optics consulting. They will add features to their program if you need them, which could happen if you're doing something really innovative.
I dream of designing optics using Python, but I realize that I might be waiting a while for that.
I have a friend who is developing an optical train simulator in Python, but that's for a fairly niche astronomical use case (instruments for the ELT that haven't been built yet).
I've always been curious about the optical stuff in Mathematica (there is also Optica) which I think you get for free.
Otherwise in places I've worked we used Oslo and Fred (I think one is free if you don't save, so it's useful for quick tests). I know Zemax is used by the telescope folks in my department as well.
QtLens was initial name of this app, but later project name was changed to Astree.
Here is updated screenshot.[0]
[0] https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/issues/20#issuecomment-53...