Optimization is used to improve the performance of an optical system based upon an initial design.

CAXCAD uses a powerful actively damped least squares optimization algorithm.

We use the Merit Function to control the target of the optical design system,  the users need to read the manual before use it.

For example:

CAX-SFNO and CAX-TFNO are the  Sagittal and Tangential working F/#, but they are not belong to first order data, because we use the real maginal ray trace to calculate them.