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Re: ray tracing assumptions

I have been following this discussion of ray tracing with interest.  I only use ray diagrams roughly to scale for students to approximately locate images as a check on calculations, and as a means to understand the general pattern of images for concave & convex lenses and mirrors.  I do not use them with multiple lens systems as are being discussed since I can see no easy way to produce the needed rays for the 2nd optical element to make quick and simple ray diagrams possible.  All of the calculations and discussions so far confirms that I do not want to do multiple lens/mirror ray diagrams.  For those systems calculations will suffice. If anyone knows an easy way to do this that students can do fairly quickly, I would like to see it.
James Mackey

John Mallinckrodt wrote:
On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Wolfgang Rueckner wrote:

I don't agree with this.  Mirror ray diagrams have the virtue that
you're always dealing with real light rays traveling in the direction
of the propagation of the light.

So do lens ray diagrams.  I don't know what you are implying by
this.  It is true that students often get it wrong by drawing
diagrams as if rays head TOWARD the optical element FROM
the location of virtual objects.  This is precisely why I like to
emphasize the vergence properties of INPUT and OUTPUT rays over
the LOCATIONS of objects and images.