How it used to be done: https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/ https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/ Super-experienced people backed up by a small army of

How it used to be done: https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/ https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/ Super-experienced people backed up by a small army of people doing ray-tracing by hand. Wikipedia might give you starting points to find modern answers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_lens_design#Lens_optimization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_lens_design#Lens_optim... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photographic_lens_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photographic_lens_d... And if you want to get a general feel for how the modern designs work, Bill Claffs optical bench is a nice starting point: https://www.photonstophotos.net/GeneralTopics/Lenses/OpticalBench/OpticalBench.htm https://www.photonstophotos.net/GeneralTopics/Lenses/Optical... (tbh it sounds a lot like the EDA space, and CAE in general)