Verification does not replace design work — it is an additional, independent layer of control that works best when carried out by someone other than the original designer, because it is easier to spot someone else's assumptions than your own.
Why verifying a design is not the same as producing it
The person who designed an optical system knows it best — but that same familiarity can make it harder to spot their own assumptions, which may have been adopted without sufficiently critical scrutiny. Time pressure, routine, or simply too close a perspective can leave an error in the design unnoticed by its author, even though it would be visible to someone looking at the design from the outside. Verification is exactly that kind of independent check.
What gets checked during verification of an optical design
A typical verification covers checking the correctness of the input assumptions (whether the source parameters, materials, and functional requirements are correctly represented in the model), how realistic the adopted manufacturing tolerances are, the completeness of the analysis — whether all relevant effects have been accounted for, such as aberrations, losses, stray light, or environmental conditions — and whether the final results match the design's functional requirements and, where applicable, industry standards.
Numerical verification: simulation as an independent check
One of the most effective ways to verify a design is to independently rebuild the model in simulation software and compare the results against the original design. If an independent model, built from the same documentation but by a different team, produces consistent results, that is a strong signal that the design is correct. If the results diverge, verification pinpoints exactly the place where the assumptions or the method need to be re-examined.
Typical errors caught during verification
Independent verification most often uncovers tolerances that were adopted optimistically relative to real manufacturing capability, an effect important for the specific application that was overlooked (e.g. stray light in a low-signal-level system, or the effect of temperature on an optical material), incorrect assumptions about the device's real-world operating conditions, and inconsistencies between the design documentation and the model that was actually simulated.
When it is worth commissioning external verification
External verification delivers the most value before a costly, hard-to-reverse production decision — for example, ordering injection-mold tooling or a batch of optical elements with a long lead time — as well as before submitting certification documentation against an industry standard where the design is critical to user safety, and in situations where the internal team is not fully confident in its own assumptions and needs independent confirmation.
What the design-verification process with an iSymulacje engineer looks like
The process starts with handing over the design documentation and the system's functional requirements. Our engineer rebuilds the model in the appropriate simulation environment — depending on the nature of the project this may be OSLO, TracePro, OptiSystem, or another tool from the Lambda Research and Optiwave portfolio — checks the assumptions, tolerances, and completeness of the analysis, and then delivers a report with specific comments and recommendations within an agreed timeframe.
Summary
Verifying an engineering design in optics is cheaper insurance than the cost of an error caught only during production, or at the customer's site. An independent check — ideally backed by an independently rebuilt numerical simulation — catches optimistic assumptions, overlooked effects, and inconsistencies before they become expensive. If you want someone from the outside to look at your design before a key production decision, our technical support team is available.