![]() (2) some modification of the design is required. ![]() (1) the aberration levels are acceptably low and the system may be produced The aberration magnitudes are compared with pre-established tolerances. The results provide the designer with the magnitude of aberrations describing image quality of the prescribed system. To a great extent, image quality may be determined mathematically: trigonometric ray-trace calculations yield various distances and angles which are utilized in aberration definition formulae. The purpose of ray-tracing is to quantitatively determine the quality of the image an optical system will deliver before the system is actually produced. The interested reader will find no shortage of informative material. In developing this appreciation, it is intended that the user be spared many of the theoretical details which accompany most optical reference works. In this way, the user may gain an overall appreciation of the optical design problem rather than merely delivering a numerical prescription that is capable of solving it. The text material herein will provide the reader with some understanding of the optical principles involved in applying their software tools to specific design problems. ![]() Optics is playing an increasingly vital role in complex engineering systems developed today. While many of these programs were developed for optical design professionals, software programs are available to aid both the student optical designer as well as science and engineering professionals who may or may not have prior formal training in optical design. Today there is an abundance of available optical design software programs for personal computers. In the interim period before personal computers became generally available much optical design work was done with electronic calculators. Mainframe digital computers replaced the mechanical calculator for professionals, but this resource was often not available to the non-professional lens designer. The work was tedious and subject to errors. Before the advent of mechanical computing machines, optical designers relied on laborious hand calculations with tables of logarithms and trigonometric functions as basic tools of the trade. Optical design and ray-tracing are generally regarded as difficult subjects for the non-professional.
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