raytrace

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Here are two programs for tracing rays of light through lenses.  The first

one, RayTrace is for Thin lenses.  first you will be prompted for the

number of lenses involved in the trace, The Initial Height of the object,

The Initial Angle of the ray, and the Initial Distance of the object from

the first lens.  For a ray that starts at the axis use 0 for the ray

height and .1 (an angle in radian measure) for the initial angle.  For a

parallel ray trace use 0 as the initial angle.  More information about the

system of lenses is provided from the parallel ray trace.  The sign

convention is as follows.  Rays are traced through a system from left to

right.  Provided that the object is to the left of the first lens, the

initial distance from the object to the first lens is a positive number. 

Final object distances are with respect to the last lens.  The power of a

lens is measured in diaopters.  For example, if a lens has a radius of 40

mm then its lens power is 1/40 diaopters.  The ynu program is used for

tracing rays through lenses with thickness where the refractive index must

be taken into account.  All of the sign conventions are the same for the

Ynu trace as they are for the thin lens ray trace.  However, both of these

programs are fairly specialized meet the needs of an optics class I

attended recently. So please feel free to:  Send questions or comments to

Clif Burnes

gt0370b@prism.gatech.edu