Image forming design and analysis using python

At the 2017 IODC, David Shafer gave a paper [1], and showed how a catadioptric design form could be improved by evolving from some elements being used in single pass to them being used double pass. He observed that this evolution couldn’t occur with a design program’s optimizer because the sequential modeling paradigm doesn’t support this without additional input from the user. The designer, on the other hand, can see the possibility of moving elements to jump to a new solution space. This comment was a catalyst for reexamining how sequential optical modeling developed. The goal is to address the modeling issue identified by Shafer without sacrificing the simplicity of sequential model specification. In other words, can an image forming modeling system be built that: • Retains the optimum performance and convenience of sequential models • While providing greater support for the designer’s view of the actual optical system. To assess the feasibility of these ideas, the software package ray-optics was developed using the Python language. Python is very advantageous for prototyping scientific software because of its broad ecosystem of open-source math and science software packages.