From: "James Lerch" 
To: 
Cc: "ATM List" 
Reply-To: "James Lerch" 


Greetings All,

With excellent support from the ATM list members, FigureXP w/ Monte Carlo
is ready for some trials.

Two downloads available

#1 Just the EXE (you will need VB runtimes already installed!)
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm/FigureXP_mc.zip (159KB)

#2 Full blown install
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm/FigureXP_mc_Full.zip (  1.6MB)

After creating/selecting a mirror profile, you'll find the Monte Carlo button on
the F4 Surface Analysis screen.  Clicking on the button will take you to
the data entry screen, where you can use the pre-generated standard
deviation values
for each zone, or make up your own values.

Once your ready, click the GO button, this will take you back to the F4
screen, and after a few seconds, you should see data starting to be graphed
on the screen.  The Monte Carlo process will continue until 10K simulations
have been run, or you get bored and hit the 'abort' button.

What does Monte Carlo do?  As I understand it, each longitudinal KE
measurement has SOME error associated with it.  The error will vary from
person to person, mirror to mirror, setup to setup, and zone to zone.   You
can find the error by
taking a LOT of KE readings then finding the standard deviation, or you can
Guess.  In any event, the Monte Carlo simulation takes each KE reading,
adds a Random amount of error (based on you error estimate), solves for the
resulting Strehl & RMS error, then repeats the whole process 10,000
times.

If you have some time to kill, create a simulated perfect mirror, then run
the Monte Carlo on it with various amounts of error (in either certain
zones, or in all zones), and observe the range of possible results.  Its
rather entertaining and educational IMHO.

Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction,testing, and coating site)

"Anything that can happen, will happen" -Stephen Pollock from:
"Particle Physics for Non-Physicists: A Tour of the Microcosmos"

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