I’m building a free web tool for AI-based thin-film reverse engineering. Looking for brutal feedback.

Hi r/Optics,

I’m the CTO of a small optical simulation startup (ComPhysics).

We usually develop commercial software for complex materials, but recently I realized something:

Traditional reverse engineering tools are great but often:

• Slow (optimization takes minutes/hours for complex stacks).
• Need good initial guesses.
• Expensive/Heavy to just quickly check a spectrum.

So, I decided to build a lightweight, web-based AI solver as a free demo.

Current Plan (MVP):

• Target: 20-layer SiO2/TiO2 stack on BK7 glass.
• Input: Target reflection spectrum (R).
• Output: Thickness of each layer and material order (< 0.1s inference time).
• Tech: 1D-CNN + MLP model trained on TMM data.

My Questions for You:

1. Is a "fixed-material" (SiO2/TiO2) tool actually useful for quick checks? Or do you need custom materials (n, k dispersion) to even consider using it?
2. Would you trust a web-based tool for initial design/monitoring?
3. If this works well, what's the #1 feature you'd want next? (e.g., Anisotropic or bianisotropic layers, Tolerance analysis?)

Honesty Policy:
Yes, I eventually want to promote our paid software for advanced features (like full 3D anisotropic analysis). But this specific web tool will remain free forever as a community resource.

I’d really appreciate your thoughts—even if it’s "This is useless because X." It saves me development time!

Thanks.