Computational wave optics library for C++: CWO++ library Original Research Article

Diffraction calculations, such as the angular spectrum method and Fresnel diffractions, are used for calculating scalar light propagation. The calculations are used in wide-ranging optics fields: for example, Computer Generated Holograms (CGHs), digital holography, diffractive optical elements, microscopy, image encryption and decryption, three-dimensional analysis for optical devices and so on. However, increasing demands made by large-scale diffraction calculations have rendered the computational power of recent computers insufficient. We have already developed a numerical library for diffraction calculations using a Graphic Processing Unit (GPU), which was named the GWO library. However, this GWO library is not user-friendly, since it is based on C language and was also run only on a GPU. In this paper, we develop a new C++ class library for diffraction and CGH calculations, which is referred to as a CWO++ library, running on a CPU and GPU. We also describe the structure, performance, and usage examples of the CWO++ library.