Here I collected some links which I find useful

for optical system designers

• Catalogs of optical materials (glasses, etc.)

http://www.oharacorp.com - The web page of Ohara company, which is one of the biggest manufacturers of optical glass. This page provides with all necessary optical and physical parameters of glasses from Ohara catalogue. In contrast to Schott's site this web-page is more engineer-oriented.

http://schott.com - Another leader of the optical glass manufacturing. In my view this web page is less useful because it is focused on business.

http://www.crystran.co.uk/index.htm The site of CRYSTRAN Optics company. A lot of data about crystals used as lens material for InfraRed & UltraViolet range can be found here.

http://glassbank.ifmo.ru/eng/ - GlassBank optical glass catalogue. It can be useful for a designer when he/she needs to substitute some optical glass for its analogue.

• Employment in Optics

I cannot tell too much about these pages and probability of success of finding job with their help. They started their mission recently. Usually the employers publish requirement announcements on their own web pages. Probably in future this special "job in optics" sites will be more popular. I would try to find a job in another way, but it can be useful to put your CV there.

http://optics.org/jobs - Optics jobs, laser jobs photonics.

http://www.photonics.com/employment - Photonics Employment Center.

http://spieworks.com/employment - SPIEWorks Jobs for optics, photonics and imaging professionals.

http://www.workinoptics.com - WORKinOPTICS.com, site supported by Optical Society of America.

• Optical Societies

http://www.osa.org - the web page of Optical Society of America (OSA). This is the most powerful Optical Society in the world. The OSA has a well-developed optical infrastructure including journals, organization of conferences, etc.

http://www.spie.org - The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE). The SPIE competes with OSA in providing with knowledge in the Optics&Photonics area. However their business is less scientific and more commercial. Unfortunately because their search of profit the quality of information suffers. They provide with info sometimes not quite as good as you may expect.

http://www.europeanopticalsociety.org - European Optical Society. They try to compete with the OSA as well, but their activities are still limited by regional orientation.

• Useful Databases

http://www.opticsinfobase.org - Optics InfoBase. This web-page is supported by OSA and it gives an access to the enormous number of articles published in OSA journals.

http://www.spie.org Among its other activities SPIE publishes several journals and many conference proceedings. In comparison with Optics the InfoBase it gives more useful information with respect to interests of an engineer.

http://ep.espacenet.com - The European Patent Office. It provides with a free access to the patents issued in the EU and even further including many optical system designs.

http://www.uspto.gov - United States Patent and Trademark Office Home Page. It gives a free access to the patents and patent applications issued in the USA since 1790.

• Optical software

http://www.opticalres.com - Optical Research Associates. This is the company which considers itself as number one in the world of optical design software. Up to a point it is actually true but the price they ask is certainly not adequate to the abilities they possess. They offer two main products Code V (software for computation of optical system parameters) and LightTools (CAD program with moderate ray tracing possibilities for the optomechanical design). They have very good support service as well. The results obtained with Code V are the most relevant among others.

http://www.zemax.com - ZEMAX Development Corporation. This is the main competitor of ORA in the optics world. As an analysis tool its product ZEMAX is almost as powerful as Code V. Moreover ZEMAX is the most popular optical software in the world. However the optimization engine (especially global optimization) is not so well developed. Nevertheless it has many advantages and in 95% cases it is enough to use ZEMAX for your design purposes.

http://www.lambdares.com - Lambda Research Corporation. With its programs OSLO and TracePro this is the third big player in the field. The dynamics of OSLO development looks very promising. The main advantage of OSLO is its flexibility. Many functions can be program in standard C.

http://home.gwi.net/OSD Optical Systems Design Inc. This company offers the optical system design program SYNOPSYS which is a very good budget solution for small companies with moderate interest in optics. For simple ray tracing it can be used interchangeably with others.

• Components

http://www.edmundoptics.com - Edmund Optics. Here you can order many optical components e.g. lenses, mirrors, gratings, etc. The disadvantages are high prices and strictly defined optical parameters.

• References

http://www.microscopyu.com/index.html - Nikon Microscopy

http://www.photonics.com

http://mathworld.wolfram.com - Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics. From my point of view this is the best open Encyclopedia of Mathematics.

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/topics/ Optics.html Optics from Eric Weisstein's World of Physics. This site is not so good developed source as the previous one, however it is going to be better.