Photonium Insight + custom automation
Run more design iterations
Insight enables optical engineers to go from spec to toleranced design without hand-assembling merit functions or writing the automation scripts themselves. It writes and runs the scripts, executes the analyses and optimization, and proposes design changes that are applied once approved. It drives Zemax, CODE V, or in-house tools rather than replacing them, so the setup work that eats a design schedule gets done faster.
01
Start
A starting point, from a written spec, a prior design, a patent, or an existing design file.
02
Run
Scripts, parameter sweeps, optimization runs, and tolerance analyses, in Zemax, CODE V, or our own engine.
03
Evaluate
Insight reads the analysis output itself and pulls out what matters for the next step.
04
Diagnose
Which aberration is limiting performance, and which surfaces drive it.
05
Iterate
Multiple design paths explored and compared in parallel. Approved changes are applied automatically.
06
Package
Files back into your workflow in your tools’ native formats, with the analysis and tolerance results for review.
Proposed changes are applied only after engineer approval
Photonium Insight
For teams that already script
If you already script your design tools
Insight works with existing macros, merit function templates, and automation scripts, whether they drive Zemax, CODE V, or in-house tools. It calls them directly, writes new scripts for repetitive runs, batches them across starting points and parameter ranges, and reads the results back.
Individual scripts become steps in a larger workflow. Insight chains them together, runs them across many design variants in parallel, and keeps the results comparable from run to run.
What Insight automates
Chat-driven design environment
A complete optical design environment you run by chatting with a frontier LLM.
1:1 Zemax file compatibility
Native .ZMX import and export, so files move in and out of your existing Zemax workflow unchanged.
Prescriptions from patents
Upload a patent and get a working prescription back automatically, with units converted.
Analysis on request
Request any analysis in plain language and Insight runs and presents the result: ray trace, spot & RMS WFE, MTF, PSF, Seidel coefficients, RMS vs. Field.
Aberration diagnosis
Insight identifies the limiting aberration and what’s driving it, the diagnosis an engineer normally works out from ray fans, OPD, MTF, and Seidel terms.
Read the researchOptimization & tolerancing
Describe what to optimize or tolerance and Insight builds the merit function and runs it, in Zemax, CODE V, or our own optimization engine.
Example use cases
RFQ feasibility checks
Turn a customer spec into candidate design forms, rough tolerances, and the main cost drivers before committing senior designers to a quote that may not close.
Tolerance at every stage
A tolerance analysis is a quick request, so you can check as-built performance throughout the design instead of saving it for the end.
Aberration-guided iteration
Diagnose the limiting aberration at any point and let it direct your next move, so each step targets what’s actually holding the design back.
If you design lenses
Insight handles merit function setup, batch runs, tolerance reruns, and report write-ups through plain-language requests. Suggested design changes arrive with their supporting analysis and are applied only after approval, so problems surface immediately instead of at design review.
If you run the team
With setup and rerun work automated, the same team answers more RFQs, runs tolerancing earlier, and catches manufacturability problems before they reach the floor. A pilot is scoped to one workflow and measured in engineering hours saved.
How we deploy
Map
We sit with your optical engineers and trace one workflow end-to-end: RFQ feasibility, design setup, optimization, tolerancing, or factory handoff.
Integrate
We connect to the files, scripts, templates, and review documents your team already uses, and keep them as they are.
Automate
We build the automation for that workflow, shaped to your standards: generate, run, evaluate, iterate, package.
Prove
A short pilot on one live problem, under NDA, in your environment. You measure the engineering time it saves before going further.
Scope one workflow.
Start with a single workflow, scoped with your team and run under NDA.