Re: [Goptical] Total internal reflection

[Alexandre Becoulet]

On Sunday, December 18, 2011 11:00:51 AM Karl D.D. Willis wrote:

Hi Karl,

> I am interested in using goptical for simulating the total internal
> reflection that occurs inside fiber optics. I have been playing around with
> the examples provided, but am a little stumped as to how best to proceed.
> 
> Are there any examples that deal with total internal reflection?
> Or do you have any suggestions about how to proceed and what goptical
> objects should be used?
> 
> Any advise would be much appreciated.

Total internal reflection is handled by the OpticalSurface class.
This class is designed to model a surface with two material models, an outline 
shape model and a curvature model.

One way to model an optical component is to instantiate one or more 
OpticalSurface surface object with suitable shape and curvature models. This 
way you might be able to build an optical fiber.

If you think using OpticalSurface this way is not suitable, you should 
consider sub-classing the Element class directly to write a fiber optics model 
with appropriate geometrical parameters. Your model will be able to react to 
incoming light rays and you can reuse code from the OpticalSurface class to 
handle TIR.

What do you think?

Best,

-- 
Alexandre