Optical Ray Tracer 1.0 review

OpticalRayTracer is a free Linux utility that analyzes systems of lenses, it is Xwindows GUI-based. It uses optical principles and

License: GPL (GNU General Public License) File size: 388K Developer: Paul Lutus

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OpticalRayTracer is a free Linux utility that analyzes systems of lenses, it is Xwindows GUI-based.

It uses optical principles and a virtual optical bench to predict the behavior of many kinds of ordinary and exotic lens types. OpticalRayTracer includes an advanced, easy-to-use interface that allows the user to rearrange the optical configuration by simply dragging lenses around using the mouse.

OpticalRayTracer fully analyzes lens optical properties, incuding refraction and dispersion. The dispersion display uses color-coded light beams, as shown above, to simplify interpretation of the results.

Educators take note: OpticalRayTracer has significant educational potential in the teaching of basic optical principles, and it has some entertaining and game-like behaviors to hold the student's attention.

OpticalRayTracer includes a detailed tutorial/help file to assist the user in getting started in this interesting activity.

Installation:

Put it in any convenient location.
$ tar -xjf raytracer.tar.bz2
$ cd raytracer.dist
$ ./auto_install.sh
If you don't want the automatic installation or you want to fine-tune the process, instead of running "auto_install.sh", after the unpacking step above, do this:
$ make -f Makefile.cvs dist
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
Obviously you may want to modify some of these steps to suit your platform.