Generic method for aero-optic evaluations

The effect of aerodynamic flow on the performance of an airborne optical system is becoming a critical issue in the development of electro-optic systems. A novel technique for aero-optic calculations that is based on commercially available software is presented. The optically relevant data from the computational fluid dynamics results are transformed into an index-of-refraction field and introduced as an input to the optical code. The data do not necessarily have to be presented in analytical form; instead it is introduced in a most general form as a discrete set of values located at a nonuniform grid of points. The modified quadratic Shepard method has been adopted for data interpolation, enabling a simple interface with virtually any software output. Several numerical simulations that demonstrate the technique are presented. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.