GOSA - A Software Package for the Analysis and Optimization of General Optical Systems

Abstract

The technical features of GOSA, an optical CAD software package developed by Beijing Institute of Technology, are summarized. The program is the first in China which is capable of handling general optical systems, i.e., systems without rotational symmetry and/or with unconventional optical elements. Novel theories of image formation, such as Hopkins’ canonical coordinates, are employed in the program to improve its calculation accuracy and effectiveness. Extra care is taken to reduce the program’s memory requirement so that it can be run on IBM-series personal computers and compatibles with the basic 640K memory.