An optical transmitter apparatus is disclosed. The apparatus includes a processor, a memory coupled to the processor, and one or more programs configured to be executed by the processor. The programs include instructions for nonlinearity estimation that characterizes nonlinearity in an optical communication and estimates an amount of symbol distortion caused by the nonlinearity, instructions for selecting and mapping symbols to provide, for the nonlinearity estimation, only symbols that meet predetermined nonlinearity criteria, and instructions for storing, in the memory, the amount of symbol distortion to be used for a nonlinearity pre-compensation.