Optical ray tracing

[hw3]

Hi, is it possible to use Mathcad for optical ray tracing? I am able to do the ABCD gaussian beam propagation but wish to visualise the rays i.e. bouncing off mirrors.

I am running Mathcad 15

Thanks

[RichardJ]

Only if you write a worksheet (or worksheets) to do it. That is possible (in fact, I know someone that has done it) but it would be a huge amount of work. If you can't afford a full blown ray tracing program you can get a free version of the OSLO software here: http://www.sinopt.com/. It's restricted to 10 surfaces (and I think sequential ray tracing only), but maybe that's all you need.

[VladimirN]

Hello,

Perhaps this book will be interesting to you: http://communities.ptc.com/docs/DOC-1603

[Wolinski]

Hey, thanks for this link i was looking for my answer and i got it keep supporting like this. upsers

[KEVINLEHMANN]

I have a Mathcad Worksheet I wrote years ago that defines all the standard ABCD matrices and many other functions that simply both Gaussian beam propagation and clasical ray tracing calculations. I attache the current version below. Any comments or especially bug reports are appreciated.

[JK_9625275]

I wrote a Mathcad worksheet years ago for an acoustic lens system.  It works equally well for optical lens systems once you adjust the refractive indices.  I have attached a copy in Mathcad 14 format.  The attached XMCD file is for a 5 lens system, but you should be able to adapt it to any number of lenses needed.