T3D book review - OEF by BHW

[john bercovitz <bercov@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've just read a book titled "Optical Engineering Fundamentals" 
written by Bruce Walker.  Copyright 1998 SPIE, Bellingham, Washington 
tel 360-647-1445 www.spie.org ISBN 0-8194-2764-0.  SPIE will take a 
credit card.

This book's emphasis is on the "practical" side with few equations 
but lots of information.  Mostly it's an explanation of the concepts 
of optical engineering, such as what a pupil is, but also it gets 
into what species of lens might be best for a particular application.  
Along the way, you find what reference books you need for various 
aspects of the field and a typical ray tracing program (OSLO) is 
demonstrated.  I would rate this book as "highly accessible".
One of the few equations given is of interest here.  That equation 
tells how much an eyepiece has to be adjusted for someone who is 
nearsighted or farsighted.  When I've been asked to do this 
calculation before either here or on P3D, I've gone about it the hard 
way.  Here's the trick:  Say your viewer has 43 mm focal length 
lenses.  Then the amount the lenses have to be adjusted is 43^2/1000 
for each diopter of correction.  43^2/1000 = 1.849  So if your eyes 
require a prescription of -4 diopters, then you will have to adjust 
the lenses in toward the stereo slide 1.849*4 = 7.4 mm from the 
"normal" or infinity position.  Is that simple or what?

John B


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End of TECH-3D Digest 326
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