The Optics Project (TOP) is a multidisciplinary effort to develop an interactive computer graphics system for the simulation and visualization of optical phenomena. TOP is intended to serve two major functions. First, TOP is a pedagogical framework from which optics and field-related physics can be taught. This aspect of TOP is currently being supported by the NSF under the project title "An Interactive Computer Graphics System for the Teaching of Undergraduate Optics." Second, TOP is an environment in which more sophisticated new algorithms for simulation and visualization can be developed.

TOP has a modular structure, and each module is designed to be: (a) interactive, (b) three-dimensional, and (c) animated (for those phenomena for which animation is appropriate). Faculty and students from three different departments ( Physics and Astronomy, Computer Science, and Electrical and Computer Engineering ) are working or have worked on TOP. This work is being carried out at the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation at MSU. 


Currently TOP runs on SGI workstations. Recently we have created a web version (which we call WebTOP) of one TOP module using VRML 2.0 and Java. WebTOP is fully 3D and interactive and runs on the Web.

TOP was used to help teach a junior/senior level optics course in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Mississippi State University during the spring semesters of 1997 and 1998. It was used to help teach a junior/senior level optics course in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during the spring semester of 1998. It will be used to help teach an Electromagnetic Fields course in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Mississippi State University this coming fall.