Optical Engineering Reading Guides

These guides connect five reference books to practical optical-engineering questions. They focus on physical models, assumptions, units, and checks that can be used with any suitable calculation method.

• Optical System Design
• Modern Optical Engineering
• Introduction to Lens Design
• Stray Light Analysis and Control
• Modulation Transfer Function

Choose a route

• System requirements and budgets: Fischer, Tadic-Galeb, and Yoder.

• Paraxial optics and aberrations: Smith, with Finding the Cardinal Points and Pupils by Ray Tracing.

• Lens design workflow: Sasián, with Introduction To Fundamental Lens Design.

• Ghosts and radiometry: Fest, with Folded Coaxial Illumination — Projection Physics and the MV-150.

• Image quality: Boreman, with Machine-Vision Camera and Lens EOL Qualification.

State ray-vector order, sign conventions, wavelength units, pupil normalization, and Fourier-transform convention before comparing results. Distinguish relative ray weights from calibrated power or detector signal.

The companion Photonics Formula Guide summarizes the principal ray, wave, and detector models. These reading guides summarize connections; the books supply the complete derivations.