: Since you have the space on your disk, go get the download from Stellar Software of thier program Optics Workbench. If you can compare the results of the two, then you can make a choice between them. I might note that the professional packages for doing optics work are quite a few thousand dollars each and that's just for the license to have the thing for a while. For me, $50 for something that works is pretty cheap. The Beam 2 software is $89 for the cheapest and that's still a crude DOS (even the windoz version) program. For the same $50 you could also get the Rutten and VanVenrooij book and it's software although the DOS software again is intended for instructional purposes so it isn't a very pretty interface although they did a very good job within the intent of the programs. : Play with the demo for a while and see if you understand how to work it and if you are getting results that sort of make sense to you. If so, go buy it and get all of the bells and whistles.

Do you have an address for the d/l site handy? I did a search on "Stellar Software" and came back with thousands of sites...

Thanks again

Joe

• Re: Ray Tracing programs - bobmay - December 26, 1999 - 05:12 UTC