optics-sensor-render

name

optics-sensor-render

description

Read and render what an optical sensor actually measures in the Blender Optics Simulator — a finite sensor's aperture capture, the modal wavefront (Zernike RMS, incl. the beam's own curvature defocus), and the dense zonal surface-figure map. Use when asked "what does the sensor / WFS see", "render the wavefront", "sensor render", "show the surface figure", "measure the aberration", or "/optics-sensor-render".

optics-sensor-render: the honest "what the sensor measures"

A finite sensor does NOT swallow the whole beam, and the modal WFS is a low-pass caricature of the real figure. This skill reads both the modal and the dense zonal views and names which is which, so the result is honest.

Workflow

1. Aperture capture — sensor_capture(sensor): the beam radius w at the sensor vs its clear aperture, the captured power 1 − exp(−2a²/w²), the captured figure fraction ρ_max = a/w, and whether the aperture clip applied. A collimated beam that fits keeps the whole figure; a diverging beam that overfills is clipped — the SAME optic reads differently through different beams.
2. Modal wavefront — ao_measure(sensor) / get_wavefront(sensor): the reconstructed Zernike vector + RMS. This now folds in the beam's OWN wavefront curvature R(z) as defocus (a clean diverging beam reads its real defocus, not RMS 0), plus rms_modal (the DM-correctable part) and n_beams. It is a 15-Zernike low-pass — faithful for smooth figures, a caricature for high-frequency relief.
3. Dense zonal map — zonal_render(sensor=…, filepath=…): the RAW px×px surface-figure field with NO 15-mode projection, so mid/high-spatial-frequency figure survives up to the grid Nyquist. This is the honest companion to the modal read; use it to SEE the actual relief. It finds the reflective element feeding the sensor and renders ITS figure over the beam footprint (Gaussian-weighted, not top-hat) — errors cleanly if no reflected beam lands on the sensor.
4. Show it — render() a hero view + surface the saved sensor frame so it can be eyeballed.

Disciplines

• Always NAME the view: "modal (15-Zernike low-pass)" vs "zonal (dense raw field)". They legitimately disagree on high-frequency content; that's the point of showing both.
• A finite sensor reads only its aperture — report ρ_max / captured power, never imply the whole beam was measured.
• The modal AO loop corrects the modal channel; the static read also surfaces the beam's intrinsic defocus — for a collimated reference they coincide. Don't conflate the loop residual with the read.