Canon has purchased a Fujitsu FX1000 supercomputer to go “no-prototype” in product development

RMac

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Cool! Out of curiosity, does anyone here know what software tools companies that make optics use to simulate optical performance? I'm pretty familiar with the structural mechanics side of things (my day job is writing structural mechanics simulation software), but am not really familiar with the optical side of things.
 
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Mar 25, 2011
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Lenses are still designed by ray tracing. They use computers, but for a complex lens, they are still limited as to what properties can be computed. It used to be that they had computers running 24 / 7 searching out lens formulas to try and find something better yet reasonably priced to build. As higher standards are needed for lenses, its likely that they are still searching thru the infinite number of lens combinations. With newer manufacturing techniques using bonded diffractive elements, there are likely many more years worth of searches to do.
 
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RunAndGun

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Dec 16, 2011
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Well maybe now they could actually do some user surveys...

In 32 years of using Canon I've never once seen any form of market research despite registering my products. Little wonder they get such a tough time at product releases when they haven't actually asked what their users want or need.

I was solicited several years ago on the cine side. And they sent me a nice discount code (maybe 15%-20% off, IIRC) to use in the Canon store for my time. Ended up using it on a 100-400 v2 that already had an instant rebate on it.
 
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reefroamer

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Jun 21, 2014
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Well maybe now they could actually do some user surveys...

In 32 years of using Canon I've never once seen any form of market research despite registering my products. Little wonder they get such a tough time at product releases when they haven't actually asked what their users want or need.
Makes no sense for Canon to publicly release its market research findings. Such information would be a gift to competitors and save them the cost of doing their own research.
 
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Ozarker

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Well maybe now they could actually do some user surveys...

In 32 years of using Canon I've never once seen any form of market research despite registering my products. Little wonder they get such a tough time at product releases when they haven't actually asked what their users want or need.
I've filled out 2 or 3 surveys.
 
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Mar 25, 2011
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Cool! Out of curiosity, does anyone here know what software tools companies that make optics use to simulate optical performance? I'm pretty familiar with the structural mechanics side of things (my day job is writing structural mechanics simulation software), but am not really familiar with the optical side of things.
Its likely custom software that has the properties of canon's proprietary glass built-in.. You can determine a lens characteristic almost completely if you have enough computing horsepower.

Its theoretically possible to have a complete design from design of the optics to tooling assembly, everything. The reality is always a bit different, Canon seems very determined to automate almost every phase of their business. Its going to take many years to get even 20% done.

 
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