Producibility analyses during the optical design stage

A new software tool, called PanDao, for optical system designers is presented enabling during the design stage a simulation of the optimum fabrication chain and technologies needed as well as a fabrication cost impact analysis of design parameters and tolerances. Within a Swiss research project called PanDao, software tool was developed enabling the integration of producibility analyses and fabrication chain optimizations into the optical design process. PanDao reads in lens parameters and tolerances according to ISO 10110 standards and generates the optimal fabrication chain at minimum cost. Rrecent progress made at the modulation of optical fabrication chains and novel parameters developed for judging optical designs for risk in manufacturing will be presented. Industrial optics designs will be analised and competing systems made of spherical optics only and made of aspheres will be compared in terms of producibility.