Originally Posted by
Nodda Duma
Sorry, 2.5 GHz. Typo.
Yes, there is overhead naturally, but performance testing (number of ray traces per second) that I did while justifying computer upgrades to management indicated close enough correlation that I can claim "double the speed with double the processor.
Lens design software does not currently take advantage of GPU's. Ray tracing is only a small part of optimization. Most of an optimization cycle involves adjusting defined parameter variables and determining the effect on the value of an RSS Merit Function. The merit function can consist of thousands of calculations of performance characteristics defined by the designer such as aberration correction, mass, overall length, focal length, wavefront error or spot size, etc, etc. It's a very complex and very large set of mathematically intensive calculations.
I have talked to folks at Zemax about using the GPU. They've said in the past they were looking into it, but nothing has ever come of it. An actual ray trace through the optical system is actually pretty simple and fast. My guess is the gain in speed is not worth the trouble involved in supporting all the different GPUs out there. But I'm not a software guy.
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