Software for geometrical optics

Question

Is there any good software for construction optical path's in geometrical optics. More specifically I want features like:

• draw $k \in \mathbb{N}$ objects $K_1,\dots,K_n$ with indices of refraction $n_1,\dots,n_k$ and light sources $l \in \mathbb{N}$ light sources $L_1,\dots,L_l$

  -- draw for each some of these light sources light rays and the program constructs the optical path of those rays through $K_1,\dots,K_n$.

  -- instead of drawing the light rays, draw a point and the program construction the optical path between the light sources and the given point

• draw some specific optical elements like lenses, (concave, convex) mirrors and do things like above

• construct automatically virtual images

• 3D drawings would be fine

I would prefer free software for linux.

Answer 1

The industrial tool is zemax; however, it is very expensive.

If you just want to make diagrams, the TeX package pst-optics might do the trick.

In the gaussian beam regime, optocad (free) is a tool often used in the laser interferometer gravitational wave detector community.

Answer 2

I am not aware of a simple program to do what you ask. What comes to mind are either raytracers or finite element methods (FEM).

For a list of raytracing software: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ray_tracing_software

I am not aware of any free FEM software but for an overview of the principle go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_element

Edit: I didn't read carefully. You wanted geometrical optics. I was thinking of ray/wave optics.