4 ms·

Astree – Optical ray tracing and design software

42 points by app4soft 6y ago

qznc 6y ago
Was slightly confused because there is this other Astrée: https://www.absint.com/astree/index.htm https://www.absint.com/astree/index.htm
- app4soft 6y ago
  JFTR, Did you know that Skencil[0] vector editor (open-source app for Linux) formerly called Sketch[1], but actually there is another one Sketch[2] vector editor (proprietary app for macOS). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skencil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skencil [1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/sketch/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/sketch/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketch_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketch_(software)
  - tobr 6y ago
    Sketch is not “by” Apple. It’s made by Bohemian Coding, though exclusively for macOS. Edit: And I don’t really understand why it’s even relevant. Skencil changed it’s name in 2004, several years before the first release of Bohemian Coding’s Sketch.
    - app4soft 6y ago
      > Sketch[2] is not “by” Apple. Thanks for correction. Just fixed in my comment above.
discordance 6y ago
That's cool. The other one we use a lot in the industry is Zemax
- gdevenyi 6y ago
  When I worked in a design firm we used CodeV. ZEMAX was for the test and assembly engineers. I think the price difference was 10X!
  - analog31 6y ago
    I'm a Zemax user. It's certainly used for serious design work, though it's also acknowledged that CodeV is more elaborate. Granted, I'm not designing high performance optics -- mostly stuff for measurement instruments. For me, since optics isn't even 100% of my job, it's hard to justify upping to CodeV. It would be interesting to work somewhere with test engineers who can grok Zemax. My observation is that unless someone has a degree in optics or physics, they have little hope of understanding optics, and Zemax isn't nearly as user friendly as, say, Solid Works. As I understand it, CodeV is more than just software -- your rental agreement gives you access to their team of optical engineers who also do general optics consulting. They will add features to their program if you need them, which could happen if you're doing something really innovative. I dream of designing optics using Python, but I realize that I might be waiting a while for that.
    - joshvm 6y ago
      It's a shame that Zemax recently went down the subscription route, but I suppose most users were already getting updates every year anyway. I have a friend who is developing an optical train simulator in Python, but that's for a fairly niche astronomical use case (instruments for the ELT that haven't been built yet). I've always been curious about the optical stuff in Mathematica (there is also Optica) which I think you get for free. Otherwise in places I've worked we used Oslo and Fred (I think one is free if you don't save, so it's useful for quick tests). I know Zemax is used by the telescope folks in my department as well.
kyberias 6y ago
The convention of naming a program with a prefix based on the UI-framework is bizarre. QtLens.
- app4soft 6y ago
  Screenshot in the news article is default (and little outdated). QtLens was initial name of this app, but later project name was changed to Astree. Here is updated screenshot.[0] [0] https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/issues/20#issuecomment-531880054 https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/issues/20#issuecomment-53...
dTal 6y ago
I would love to try this project, but only Windows binaries are provided and there is apparently no build system; the provided Makefile only builds tests. I'm sure I could hack together a Makefile of my own, but is it worth the effort? It's not clear whether it's meant to run on Linux or not - most Windows-only projects don't even bother to provide a Makefile.
- mariuolo 6y ago
  See src/gui/Astree.pro
- app4soft 6y ago
  Take a look on Travis script.[0] Year ago I was be able to produce AppImage[1] in my fork repo. [0] https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/blob/master/.travis.yml https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/blob/master/.travis.yml [1] https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous
- app4soft 6y ago
  UPD: For temporary purpose, latest nightly AppImage build available here.[0] [0] https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous

42 points by app4soft 6y ago

qznc 6y ago

Was slightly confused because there is this other Astrée: https://www.absint.com/astree/index.htm https://www.absint.com/astree/index.htm

app4soft 6y ago
JFTR, Did you know that Skencil[0] vector editor (open-source app for Linux) formerly called Sketch[1], but actually there is another one Sketch[2] vector editor (proprietary app for macOS). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skencil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skencil [1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/sketch/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/sketch/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketch_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketch_(software)
- tobr 6y ago
  Sketch is not “by” Apple. It’s made by Bohemian Coding, though exclusively for macOS. Edit: And I don’t really understand why it’s even relevant. Skencil changed it’s name in 2004, several years before the first release of Bohemian Coding’s Sketch.
  - app4soft 6y ago
    > Sketch[2] is not “by” Apple. Thanks for correction. Just fixed in my comment above.

discordance 6y ago

That's cool. The other one we use a lot in the industry is Zemax

gdevenyi 6y ago
When I worked in a design firm we used CodeV. ZEMAX was for the test and assembly engineers. I think the price difference was 10X!
- analog31 6y ago
  I'm a Zemax user. It's certainly used for serious design work, though it's also acknowledged that CodeV is more elaborate. Granted, I'm not designing high performance optics -- mostly stuff for measurement instruments. For me, since optics isn't even 100% of my job, it's hard to justify upping to CodeV. It would be interesting to work somewhere with test engineers who can grok Zemax. My observation is that unless someone has a degree in optics or physics, they have little hope of understanding optics, and Zemax isn't nearly as user friendly as, say, Solid Works. As I understand it, CodeV is more than just software -- your rental agreement gives you access to their team of optical engineers who also do general optics consulting. They will add features to their program if you need them, which could happen if you're doing something really innovative. I dream of designing optics using Python, but I realize that I might be waiting a while for that.
  - joshvm 6y ago
    It's a shame that Zemax recently went down the subscription route, but I suppose most users were already getting updates every year anyway. I have a friend who is developing an optical train simulator in Python, but that's for a fairly niche astronomical use case (instruments for the ELT that haven't been built yet). I've always been curious about the optical stuff in Mathematica (there is also Optica) which I think you get for free. Otherwise in places I've worked we used Oslo and Fred (I think one is free if you don't save, so it's useful for quick tests). I know Zemax is used by the telescope folks in my department as well.

kyberias 6y ago

The convention of naming a program with a prefix based on the UI-framework is bizarre. QtLens.

app4soft 6y ago
Screenshot in the news article is default (and little outdated). QtLens was initial name of this app, but later project name was changed to Astree. Here is updated screenshot.[0] [0] https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/issues/20#issuecomment-531880054 https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/issues/20#issuecomment-53...

dTal 6y ago

I would love to try this project, but only Windows binaries are provided and there is apparently no build system; the provided Makefile only builds tests. I'm sure I could hack together a Makefile of my own, but is it worth the effort? It's not clear whether it's meant to run on Linux or not - most Windows-only projects don't even bother to provide a Makefile.

mariuolo 6y ago
See src/gui/Astree.pro
app4soft 6y ago
Take a look on Travis script.[0] Year ago I was be able to produce AppImage[1] in my fork repo. [0] https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/blob/master/.travis.yml https://github.com/edeforas/Astree/blob/master/.travis.yml [1] https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous
app4soft 6y ago
UPD: For temporary purpose, latest nightly AppImage build available here.[0] [0] https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous https://github.com/Symbian9/Astree/releases/tag/continuous