If you're designing an optical system - be it a single light-bulb or a petawatt laser - there is a software package that can help. But how do you choose the right one for your needs? Michael Hatcher looks at six of the most popular packages used by the optics industry. 55I>v3 w $ -y+97 As the processing power of PCs has rocketed over the past decade, so optical design software has evolved. Once a highly specialized tool that had to be operated on mainframes and UNIX workstations, now such software is accessible on the desktop of any average optical engineer.
