LTI Optics is an independent company committed to enhancing and supporting the industry's leading optical design software, Photopia, as well as providing optical design services to the lighting industry.

Optical Design Software

LTI Optics has a long history of optical design software. We pride ourselves on the accuracy and ease of use of our software.

Photopia

Optical Design Consulting

With over 50 years of experience on thousands of projects, we have the expertise and resources to solve your most complex optical design problems.

Optical Design Consulting

Lamp and Material Measurements

For accurate raytracing software, accurate lamp and material models are a requirement. With over 30 years of experience we've mastered the art and science of characterizing lamps and materials for raytracing.

Library Measurements

Principals

Mark Jongewaard

President, Photopia Product Manager, Senior Optical Engineer

Mark holds a bachelors in architectural engineering from the University of Colorado as well as a masters in civil engineering. Both degrees have an emphasis in illumination. Mark also maintains a close relationship with the lighting program at the University of Colorado, teaching a full semester course on optical design as well as being a board member and instructor for the Rocky Mountain Lighting Academy. Mark has completed optical projects for hundreds of customers, resulting in 10 granted and 9 pending US Patents. Outside of work, Mark enjoys skiing, mountain & road biking and traveling.

Ryan Kelley

Vice President, Photopia Product Support, Senior Optical Engineer

Ryan went to the University of Colorado - Boulder and studied Architectural Engineering with a focus on Lighting, in which he has both BS and MS degrees. After a summer internship at Cooper Lighting in Georgia that involved getting a golf cart stuck on the first day, he returned to Colorado and joined LTI after graduation in May of 2006, just as LTI Optics was being created. Ryan focuses on optical design, completing designs for hundreds of clients around the globe, resulting in 11 granted and 15 pending US patents. Outside of the office Ryan enjoys road biking, skiing, camping and hiking.

Timeline key events from our 40 year history

  • Photopia 2023 July 2023
    New set of parametric collimator design tools in Photopia for Rhino. Expanded PODT features in SOLIDWORKS, including parametric lofted features.
  • Scripting Photopia for Rhino June 2022
    Scripting & optimization features added to Photopia for Rhino.
  • Photopia for Rhino April 2021
    Launch of Photopia for Rhino, a new Photopia Add-In allowing users to work directly inside of Rhino.
  • Photopia | Reports October 2017
    An entirely new, vector based plotting system for data output from IES files.
  • Photopia 2017 October 2017
    Full support for anisotropic transmissive materials using our new high resolution BSDF measurement machine, along with support for local languages in SOLIDWORKS.
  • Photopia for SOLIDWORKS PODT May 2016
    The first optical software with optical design tools that operate directly inside of SOLIDWORKS.
  • Photopia 2015 August 2015
    Color material support and raytraces in energy units like watts and PAR for horticulture.
  • Photopia for SOLIDWORKS December 2014
    All of Photopia, inside of SOLIDWORKS to save time. Our first integration in a 3rd party CAD package.
  • Photopia 2014 July 2014
    A completely rewritten raytracing engine enables multithreaded raytraces, spectral raytraces, and optimizes LED arrays, resulting in an up to 50X speed increase.
  • Photopia 3.1 2010
    New Parametric Refractor Design Tools for designing lens optics, which are more commonly used with LEDs and thus gaining popularity and feasibility.
  • Photopia 3 2008
    Major improvements to CAD system, as well as support for anisotropic materials and scripting.
  • LTI Optics formed 2007
    LTI Optics was spun off from Lighting Technologies when it was purchased by Musco Sports Lighting. LTI Optics is an independent business to focus on Photopia and optical design services.
  • LTI Sold 2006
    LTI is sold to Musco Sports Lighting, a customer of LTI's custom software services, in order to focus on in-house software development for Musco.
  • Photopia 2.0 Released 2000
    Optimized raytracer allowing for larger models and speed improvements up to 50X faster. Introduction of the Parametric Optical Design Tools for reflector optics, radically decreasing optical design development times.
  • Simply Series Released 1997
    LTI released the Simply Lighting Series of products. These were smaller scoped applications that allowed for the quick design of several types of lighting systems.
  • Photopia Released 1996
    Photopia replaces FiELD as our luminaire design and analysis software. Photopia is based on non-sequential 3D probabilistic raytracing and oriented toward non-imaging optical systems.
  • Custom Software 1994
    LTI begins developing custom versions of its lighting design software for various manufacturers around the world to use internally and distribute to customers with a database of their products.
  • FiELD Released 1987
    New software for designing luminaire optical systems, based on non-diffuse radiative transfer methods.
  • BFDF/BTDF Device 1987
    LTI builds a custom measurement device to develop a material scattering library for FiELD. This begins a nearly 30 year history of material measurements.
  • Lumen-Micro Released 1982
    Lumen-Micro is one of the first lighting analysis programs available on the personal computer, enabling small lighting design firms who didn't have access to the large mainframes to perform lighting calculations of their own.
  • Lighting Technologies Founded 1982
    LTI was founded in Boulder Colorado.