ZemaxDDEClient

🌐 Documentation available in multiple languages:

📌 About

An application for Zemax that enables advanced analysis of optical systems through direct access to their parameters via DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange).

Working with Zemax via DDE

What is DDE?

Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) is a Windows interprocess communication protocol that enables data exchange between applications. Two applications can establish a DDE link:

• Server (Zemax in this case) - provides data
• Client (your application) - requests and receives data

Zemax implements a DDE server interface, allowing external applications to access optical design data and functionality.

How ZemaxDDEClient Works

This project is a DDE client that:

1. Establishes DDE connection with Zemax as server
2. Sends data requests (e.g., optical system parameters)
3. Receives and processes responses from Zemax

Documentation Reference

For complete DDE command reference, see "Chapter 28: ZEMAX EXTENSIONS" in official Zemax documentation.

🔽 Downloads

Pre-built binaries for Windows are available on the Releases page.

• Release builds — stable, tested versions.
• Dev builds — test builds with new or experimental features not yet included in a release (may be unstable).

💡 Each build includes two versions:
– Release — for regular use,
– Debug — with console output and extended logging for debugging.
Both share the same build number for easy comparison.

🏁 Run

You can launch the application in two ways: via Zemax’s Extensions menu or by running the executable directly.

Option 1: Launch via Zemax Extensions

This method integrates the application into Zemax’s Extensions menu for convenient access.

1. Launch Zemax
2. Open the Extensions menu (default hotkey F11)
3. From the list, select an executable file named like: ZemaxDDEClient_*.exe

💡 Zemax scans the Extend folder inside its installation directory (typically C:\Program Files\Zemax\Extend\) and displays all .exe files from it in the Extensions menu. To make the application permanently available, place your executable in this folder.

Option 2: Direct Launch

You can run the executable directly without adding it to Zemax.

1. Launch Zemax
2. Run the ZemaxDDEClient_*.exe file
3. Click the Connect to Zemax button in the Sidebar window

📦 Prerequisites

• MSYS2 with MinGW-w64 toolchain
• CMake (≥ 3.16)
• GLFW: pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-glfw
• Zemax (acts as a DDE server once running)

📚 Third-Party Libraries

This project uses the following third-party libraries:

• Dear ImGui by Omar Cornut — Immediate Mode GUI
• ImPlot by Evan Pezent — 2D plotting library for Dear ImGui
• Native File Dialog (NFD) by Michael Labbe — Cross-platform file dialogs

🚀 Build Setup

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/d3m37r4/ZemaxDDEClient.git
   cd ZemaxDDEClient

2. Install MSYS2 and dependencies:

   pacman -Syu
   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain mingw-w64-x86_64-glfw cmake

3. Fetch the submodules (if not cloned with --recurse-submodules):

   git submodule update --init --recursive

4. Set up environment in Git Bash:

   export PATH=/c/msys64/mingw64/bin:/c/msys64/usr/bin:$PATH
   export LIBRARY_PATH=/c/msys64/mingw64/lib:$LIBRARY_PATH
   export CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=/c/msys64/mingw64/include:$CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH

🔨 Build

The project uses CMake for reliable builds. For convenience, it is recommended to use the build.sh wrapper script.

# Make the build.sh file executable
chmod +x build.sh

# Build the Release version (used by default)
./build.sh

# Build the Debug version (with visible console and DEBUG_LOG enabled)
./build.sh debug

# Build with optimization: -O2
./build.sh optimize=1

# Build with maximum optimization: -O3
./build.sh optimize=2

# Debug build with -O2 optimization (example of combining arguments)
./build.sh debug optimize=1

# Clean the build directory
./build.sh clean

# Build with a fixed timestamp — for stable artifacts in CI and automation
BUILD_TIMESTAMP=1766073737 ./build.sh release

Manual build via CMake (if fine-grained control or debugging of the build process is needed):

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

🤝 Contribution and support

If you have any thoughts, bug reports, or suggestions to improve the product, please contact me at one of the following places:

You can also submit a pull request.