Optical bench software

Read the light
you cut.

Prism Works runs the floor of an optical-glass studio — anneal cycles, index profiles, and dispersion QC — in an interface built from the same material it measures: glass that refracts, splits, and casts caustics.

Bench 04 · cycle 0412
nd 1.51680 · Vd 64.17
hold 541 °C · yield 94%
The material

Depth you can measure.

Every plate refracts the field behind it, fringes its edge into spectrum, and reports its optical depth. Hierarchy is read off the bench, not decorated on.

z · 00

Surface read

Foreground plates carry full-opacity glass and the brightest spectral fringe.

1.5168index · N-BK7
z · 12

Reading plane

Mid-depth panes lens the strata beneath, holding text at full contrast.

64.17Abbe Vd
z · 28

Workspace shelf

Quieter strata set back into the bench; the lightbox ground shows through.

541°anneal hold
Three optical principles

Refract. Disperse. Focus.

Refraction

Plates bend the bench behind them through real backdrop lensing — translucency that adds spatial information, never just blur.

backdrop-filter · blur(14) sat(150)

Dispersion

Active edges split into a razor-thin red-green-blue fringe — the signature mark of an element catching and dividing light.

edge fringe · R/G/B

Caustics

Light focuses, not scatters. The bench beneath the glass carries woven caustic webs — bright, calm, and slow on 20-second cycles.

caustic field · 20s drift
Caustic Optical Works

Put your bench under glass.

Log a blank, run the anneal, read the dispersion — every reading lives on a surface that behaves like the optics it grades.