Hi, I’m the developer of OpticSketcher, an evolving side project and free browser-based ray-optics sketching tool. I came across this thread and thought it might be relevant as a lighter-weight option.
I started building it after spending too much time drawing optical setups in PowerPoint. It is designed for quickly sketching, exploring, and communicating optical layouts, rather than replacing Zemax, OSLO, or similar software for detailed lens design, optimization, and tolerancing. I continue adding capabilities and correcting things as I use it.
It supports interactive 2D and 3D ray tracing, lenses, mirrors, prisms, beam splitters, dispersion, polarization, diffraction gratings, sensors with basic analysis, and ZMX lens import. It runs directly in the browser without installation or an account. It is not open-source, but is currently free to use for personal, educational, research, and commercial purposes.
However this seems to be a ‘currently free of monetary cost to use’ cloud-based service tool rather than an open source utility. Such tools may transition to a fee-based solution in the future as you say on your website ‘Pricing or license terms may change later’.
I think it is important for potential adopters to appreciate that because if they invest their time and work making their projects in your tool now, while it is free of monetary cost, and later you make it a paid product, then they will either have to pay up or loose the ability to continue to work on their project so they will no longer be able to edit, update or otherwise continue to work on their existing projects made with the free version. Since this is a cloud-based service, there will not even be the option to continue to work on a locally running free copy of the software.
This is my understanding of the situation based on what I have read on your website. Please correct me if I have misunderstood.
Thanks for the warm welcome and the kind words. I’m glad you find the project useful.
You raise a fair concern. Advanced features intended for professional or commercial use may become paid in the future, but I intend to keep the core sketching and ray-tracing tools free for personal, educational, and non-commercial use.
Users will also retain access to their projects. Designs can already be saved locally as fully editable OpticSketcher files and reopened later. I agree that the current wording on the website is too broad, and I’ll clarify it.
I second Optiland. I’ve used it for some projects in the lab and it’s solid. The lead maintainer is also very responsive to issues that I’ve opened on GitHub, and I know that at least the paraxial module is cross-validated against Zemax. (Not sure about the other modules.)
It’s completely open source under the LGPL license. I only ever add stuff that I need to it but will gladly accept PRs from others. I don’t intend to make it a general tool.
