The art of back-of-the-envelope paraxial raytracing

    Authors

    J. P. Rolland; V. Shaoulov;F. J. Gonzalez

    Abbreviated Journal Title

    IEEE Trans. Educ.

    Keywords

    hand raytracing; paraxial raytracing; ray sketching; Education, Scientific Disciplines; Engineering, Electrical & Electronic

    Abstract

    Paraxial raytracing is a valuable tool for making quick "back-of-the-envelope" calculations in optical system design. Its popularity has been highly diminished as a consequence of the growing sophistication of computer-aided raytracing and the availability of powerful computers. The availability of raytracing computer programs does not barm in itself the usefulness of graphical raytracing, but it makes people forget, or never learn the basics of graphical raytracing. In this paper, some of the basic concepts of graphical raytracing are presented, along with some examples that illustrate how it can be applied to multielement systems. The mastering of the methods presented in this paper constitute some of the fundamentals required in the use of any optical software. Such knowledge is absolutely necessary for the conception of novel optical systems.

    Journal Title

    Ieee Transactions on Education

    Volume

    44

    Issue/Number

    4

    Publication Date

    1-1-2001

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    365

    Last Page

    372

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000172175600011

    ISSN

    0018-9359

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