Re: Optical Ray-tracing software - not like povray!
David Fokkema wrote:
On Tue, 2007-11-06 at 20:12 -0600, elw@stderr.org wrote:
The jocaml home page (http://jocaml.inria.fr/) has a couple of TINY ray
tracers as the examples.
What about tachyon?
http://jedi.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/raytracer/
I think your missing the point. I think the OP means he's teaching
students about lenses and how optical lenses bend light to create an
image of an object. He's probably teaching them stuff like 1/f = 1/v +
1/b (or probably the more complete lens makers formula).
So, basically, he's teaching ray tracing in the sense of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens_%28optics%29
Yes, this is what I was meaning - and yes, you can see how its difficult
to explain what we need!
So, he needs a program (java applet?) that can trace rays through lenses
and show students if that will result in an image. There are nice
interactive applets on the internet today which will do simple ray
tracing and teach students intuitively how lenses work.
For example, http://webphysics.davidson.edu/applets/Optics/intro.html
This is the kind of thing I am talking about, yes, although I can't
check that java applet right now. Its not just applets I'm meaning,
since currently the students use it to understand 'arbitrary' optics
systems. At least with geometrical optics. Things like dispersion in
prisms, what happens when you place a second triangular prism upside
down next to the first, etc. This is too general for most java applets,
although we do use java applets in the course to illustrate particular
points.
However, probably more advanced and preferably 3d? I know of one I once
came across... Ah, here it is:
http://openraytrace.sourceforge.net/
It's still very preliminary, I think, but maybe will suit your needs, I
don't know.
Well I don't need 3D, and that probably looks a bit too complex. Also,
not just lenses, but refraction through 'shapes', mirrors and so on. The
one currently in use is this one:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~imesoft/
Basically its like an 'optics CAD' program. You change ray orientation
or elements of the drawing, and the rays move accordingly. Actually
rather cool, but we're looking for something more up to date...
--
Neil Pilgrim
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