Tag: optics
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Ray Diagram: Now with Measurements
I’ve continued to work on the optical ray diagram tool prototype. I added a way to measure the effective focal length (EFL) of the lens system. It isn’t automatic, but by adjusting the parameters you can align an intersection at the optical axis and read off the EFL. Obviously this should be a one button…
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Early 90s Camera Teardown
Over the weekend I tore down an old RCA Super8 camcorder. It came with a power supply but it had already been damaged in the past. The viewfinder showed text over static and the tape mechanism just made a horrible squealing sound. I was interested in perhaps using the imager somehow but it seems to…
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More ray diagrams
I’ve dug into this ray diagram sketch on CodePen because it’s pretty satisfying to twiddle the properties of the simulation and see how things change. I’ve added some sliders, but beware of the code – it isn’t pretty. I’d say it’s about reached the point of unmaintainability. The UI is a total wreck, but you…
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WIP: Ray diagram in Javascript
During lunch I whipped up a software sketch based on that notebook entry I posted earlier. I thought I’d start with actually drawing the shapes required for a ray diagram, and then make it more data-driven over time. I should be able to then make a clean seam in the code where the diagram is…
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From my notebooks: optical ray tracer
Once my optics bench is finished, I plan on measuring all the lenses I have on hand and building something with them. To do that, I’ll have to try out designs using software. But since the design space is limited by what I actually have on hand, I have the opportunity to write a tool…