Types of optical systems in a lens designer's toolbox (2020)

47 picture 8 5/23/2025, 6:33:07 PM pencilofrays.com ↗

Comments (8)

alexbock · 4h ago
If you want to play with any of these lens descriptions (or look at code for simulating them), I made a free and open source visual web UI for lens design. The default project when you visit it is a double gauss lens similar to the one shown in the article.

https://alexbock.github.io/open-optical-designer/

cwmoore · 2h ago
Is there a framework or template base for these kind of (usually scientific) demonstration apps? It’s a common design language of inputs and output that I’ve seen in many pages, often self-explanatory. I like it.
alexbock · 58m ago
Thanks. I did not use any frameworks/libraries/dependencies for this project. It's vanilla JavaScript/HTML/CSS from scratch. The general concept of a spreadsheet-like data editor next to a visual view is a standard paradigm in commercial lens design software like Quadoa/OSLO/CODE V.
Rotundo · 3h ago
Took a look and I'm impressed how easy it is to use. Thanks for sharing this.
librasteve · 2h ago
amazing tool - thanks for sharing
NKosmatos · 1h ago
I remember playing around with a lenses and light sources simulator, but can’t find the link :-( If I’m not mistaken it was posted here on HN but couldn’t find it by searching with various related keywords. If anyone has it please share :-)
joshvm · 3h ago
I always wanted to play with Optica for Mathematica. It seems like a problem that would lend itself really well to the Wolfram way of visual + functional programming. However I've never met anyone who uses it and while academics usually get Mathematica for free, the plugin is pricey.

https://www.opticasoft.com/tour

https://www.opticasoft.com/copy-of-lenslab

elikoga · 4h ago
Potentially relevant:

   Show HN: Torch Lens Maker – Differentiable Geometric Optics in PyTorch (63 days ago) 2025-03-21
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43435438

https://victorpoughon.github.io/torchlensmaker/