I think you’re overthinking this, e.g., Zemax’s optimization isn’t that different than the ray-tracing presented in this book. The sophistication truly comes from the users.
But the heavy-hitters in this field all seem to have very old-timey UI's and out-of-this-world pricing.
Meanwhile, raytracing for computer graphics on GPU's is soooo performant-- it makes me wonder how much work needs to be done to make the equivalent of KiCAD for optical design.
You're missing the point. The difficulty is not in the ray tracing, etc. It is in understanding the domain of the software and what needs to be done to make it useful.
I completely agree that whatever simulation they have can be easily done better with modern GPUs.
I think you’re overthinking this, e.g., Zemax’s optimization isn’t that different than the ray-tracing presented in this book. The sophistication truly comes from the users.
Yeah, perhaps.
But the heavy-hitters in this field all seem to have very old-timey UI's and out-of-this-world pricing.
Meanwhile, raytracing for computer graphics on GPU's is soooo performant-- it makes me wonder how much work needs to be done to make the equivalent of KiCAD for optical design.
You're missing the point. The difficulty is not in the ray tracing, etc. It is in understanding the domain of the software and what needs to be done to make it useful.
I completely agree that whatever simulation they have can be easily done better with modern GPUs.