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Cartesian Sign Convention


  1. All figures are drawn with light traveling from left to right.
  2. All distances are measured from a reference surface, such as a wavefront or a refracting surface. Distances to the left of the surface are negative.
  3. The refractive power of a surface that makes light rays more convergent is positive. The focal length of such a surface is positive.
  4. The distance of a real object is negative.
  5. The distance of a real image is positive.
  6. Heights above the optic axis are positive.
  7. Angles measured clockwise from the optic axis are negative.

Because the direction of light travel is consistent and there is a consistent convention to determine the sign of all distances in a calculation, this sign convention is used in many texts. It has some advantages when dealing with multilens systems and more complex optical instruments.
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