CS optics toolkit — 2026-10-25

Choose the model for the question

Laser paths through several lenses or mirrors:
  drawOpticalRays(name,rays,surfaces,options), documented in OPTICS.txt.
  GPU traces up to128 differently positioned/directed rays through up to32
  mathematical plane, spherical or ideal-lens surfaces; up to16 path segments.
  Snell refraction, unpolarized Fresnel power, total internal reflection.
  Real spherical boundaries give geometrical aberration; ideal thin lenses do not.
  traceOpticalRay is the CPU single-ray diagnostic; measureThinLens is paraxial.

Focus or defocus a flat source picture on a screen:
  renderOpticalImage. One ideal thin lens, flat source picture. Not live geometry.
  viewOpticalImage looks through multiple analytic surfaces at that flat picture.

Look through a glass sphere at moving Unity objects:
  setOpticalObjects, createOpticalLens, setOpticalLens. Read LIVE_OPTICS.txt.
  Already exists: actual geometry, live MainCamera, no screenshot stand-in.
  Current live renderer does not trace a sequence of coupled lenses or project
  arbitrary live geometry onto a separate measurement screen.

Diffraction, interference, coherent waves and dielectric structures:
  Read WAVE_OPTICS.txt and science-recipes/wave-optics.js (packaged as
  /opt/cs-coding/catalog/examples/wave-optics.js). This is the reusable GPU Maxwell
  recipe; put its makeWaveOptics function and configuration in saved activity code.
  Execute using createGPUProgram/compileGPUProgram/runGPUProgram. No new engine
  function named createWaveOptics, no Unity editing, and no rebuild required.
  It handles a 2D TMz cross-section, not a full 3D optical instrument.

The ray and wave systems share the existing GPU infrastructure, not their physics.
Do not replace diffraction with colored laser lines or claim a ray image includes
wave interference. Do not claim 2D normalized fields are calibrated 3D optics.
General ray branching, live multi-lens image formation, 3D vector Maxwell fields,
dispersive wave materials and automatic wave/ray coupling remain future work.

For both: keep configuration in saved editor code, use MainCamera, compact controls,
sparse numerical probes, stable timesteps and a named quantity on every color key.
Match resolution to wavelength before increasing visual polish. Use sparse readings
for validation; never copy an entire GPU field back into JavaScript every frame.