Fresnel Diffraction Explorer 1.4

Diffraction is an important physical effect inherent in all wave phenomena. Fraunhofer and Fresnel diffraction are two important classes of diffraction. Fraunhofer diffraction involves coherent plane waves incident upon an obstruction. Fresnel diffraction is the same, except that the waves are spherical, effectively originating from a point source.
Fresnel Diffraction Explorer is based on an efficient algorithm to calculate numerically a Fresnel diffraction pattern using any two-dimensional aperture.
It is a simple exercise to show that Fraunhofer diffraction by an aperture is mathematically equivalent to the Fourier transform of the aperture shape. Because the integrals describing Fresnel diffraction are so intractable, however, Fresnel diffraction patterns have few analytical solutions, even in one dimension. ... A calculation in two dimensions is even more problematic.
Enhancements:
Universal Application release for Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs running OS X. Clusters of any combination of Intel or PowerPC Macs can be used in a Fresnel diffraction calculation.
Other updates:
- OS X-compliant icons, dialog boxes, including sheets and antialiased text.
- Endian conversion for file and disk storage as well as sending data over the network.
- Adaptations to bundle formats and Xcode.
- When using multiple wavelengths, FDE can export to QuickTime in addition to PICS.
- Establishment of a data fork only file format.