SMA has gained significant experience in the field of illumination and illumination design. Systems incorporating high intensity discharge (short arc) lamps, long arc lamps, spectral mixtures of LEDs, and standard tungsten halogen lamps have been modeled, designed, and built. These systems have consistently performed in accordance with the predictions derived in modeling. A number of unique solutions have been achieved by careful modeling in software, followed by prototyping of the system in the laboratory and resolving any remaining discrepancies between the prototype and the model. We have developed proprietary techniques to integrate imaging and illumination systems, often enabling us to accurately assess combined performance prior even to prototyping.

Illumination design is one of the toughest challenges in the field of optical engineering. The robust optimization routines that provide the imaging lens designer with controls over a large range of optical parameters in a merit function do not exist for the illumination engineer. While the ability to build a useful merit function has improved over the past decade, much more of the task still depends on the experience and intuition of the designer.

SMA employs state-of-the-art software tools to accurately model systems under development. Our illumination systems are designed by experienced professionals using sophisticated computing platforms with many parallel processors in order to speed the computation of the millions of rays required by every optimization cycle.