The Integrated Optical Design Analyzer (IODA) is a computer program that facilitates multidisciplinary concurrent engineering of highly precise optical instruments. (IODA should not be confused with a multidisciplinary optical-system-analysis program, called "IMOS," that has been reported previously in NASA Tech Briefs.) IODA facilitates the exchange of data among analysts, designers, and other experts in different disciplines (e.g., optics, structural analysis, heat transfer, and electronics) needed for accurate design. IODA integrates the modeling efforts of a team of such experts and provides simplified means for performing design trade studies.

IODA enables an optical designer to utilize advanced technical models, developed by experts in engineering disciplines other than optics, to optimize the design of an optical instrument. The optical designer need not be familiar with the details of the models. IODA is compatible with the Internet and can therefore enable the optical designer to integrate design inputs from other experts on the design team performing analyses on different computers at different locations.

In a sense, IODA can bring the various models developed by other experts to the optical designer's home computer system for use in the design process. IODA provides the optical designer with a user-friendly graphical user interface that enables this designer to easily gain access to the various models developed by other experts and manipulate selected model characteristics that influence the performance of the optical instrument to be designed. IODA then submits each model thus modified to its native computer system, receives the results of the computation on the modified model, and integrates the results with the detailed optical model for evaluation of the performance of the instrument.

This work was done by James D. Moore, Jr., and Charles P. DePlachett of SRS Technologies for Marshall Space Flight Center. For further information, contact SRS Technologies at (256) 971-7000.

Inquiries concerning rights for the commercial use of this invention should be addressed to

the Patent Counsel
Marshall Space Flight Center; (256) 544-0021.

Refer to MFS-31452.