Installing Lumerical Using the Ansys Automated Installer

Starting in 2025R1, Lumerical can be installed using the Ansys Automated Installer, compatible with both Windows and Linux.

For installation of older versions, you can follow the instructions in these articles on Windows and Linux (RedHat/Rocky Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Ubuntu) installation guides.

Downloading and Starting the Automated Installer

The Ansys Automated installer can be downloaded following the instructions here. An Ansys account is required to access the download page to the installer. After download, you can follow the instructions here to start the installation.

Installing Lumerical Products

Windows

Note: If you have Microsoft Visual Studio installed, please first uninstall Microsoft Visual Studio, install Lumerical using the automated installer, and then reinstall Microsoft Visual Studio if needed. Otherwise, functions related to the Intel MPI, such as remote jobs configured using it as a resource type, may not work properly. Alternatively, you may refer to the Windows Installation Guide, and install without the Intel MPI.

During the installation, you can install Lumerical products by checking the “Lumerical” box under the “Optical” section. The Ansys Optics Launcher will always be installed as a prerequisite to Lumerical products, but can be installed independently if only the “Ansys Optics Launcher” box is selected.

Following the selection, the installer will prompt present options to add firewall exceptions to products and optics launcher, and installation will begin after confirming the installation directory.

Linux

During the installation process, Lumerical and Photonics Verilog-A options can be selected under the “Optical” section.

Licensing and Usage

After installation, the Ansys Optics Launcher can be used to configure licenses for Lumerical products.

On windows, you can find the launcher executable under \Launcher\bin\Launcher.exe under the installation directory. The default path is:

"C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\ANSYS Optics\[[verpath]]\Launcher\bin\"

On Linux, the Ansys Optics Launcher can be launched with the following command:

/opt/lumerical/[[verpath]]/bin/launcher

After launching the launcher, follow the following steps to configure the license:

Select “I have a license from Ansys…”
Choose either “…configure my license only for Lumerical products”, if you will only be using Ansys Lumerical products, or choose “…configure my license for All Optics products” if you are using Ansys Lumerical together with either Ansys Speos or Ansys Zemax OpticStudio.
Follow the instructions below to configure your license:
1. Configure to use a specific licensing server: Lumerical license configuration with the Ansys Optics Launcher
2. Configure to use the Ansys License Manager: License configuration using the Ansys licensing client settings
3. Request a 7-day evaluation license: How to request an evaluation license from the Ansys Optics Launcher
4. If you are using Lumerical from a workshop, obtain a workshop License using a workshop ID: How to obtain a workshop license from the Ansys Optics Launcher

The licensing configuration is now complete, and you can follow the this Knowledge Base article on running Ansys Lumerical products.

Custom Installation Options

The automated installer does not currently support custom installations on Windows where components are individually installed, please refer to the Windows Installation Guide Knowledge Base article on the procedures to install this using the standalone installer.