Dr. George Brydon of the University of Glasgow developed the open-source tool, called SIMply, which is available as a free download on the online code repository GitHub.

SIMply aims to provide scientists and engineers with easy access to a level of sophisticated image simulation that is traditionally available only to large corporations or other highly funded research and development organizations with access to specialized tools.

The tool is capable of virtually modeling the interactions between light, surfaces, lenses and sensors to demonstrate the capabilities of a wide variety of camera systems, helping researchers to validate the performance of prototype designs before moving to hardware development.

It uses sophisticated ray-tracing and physical modeling techniques to render scenes accurately based on data provided by the user. It can simulate the noise created by camera sensors, and mimic arbitrary lens projections, from pinhole and fisheye to panoramic scanning cameras.

In a new paper published in the journal Space: Science & Technology, Dr. Brydon shows how he validated SIMply’s ability to accurately model photographs from space by comparing the simulations it created to images taken by spacecraft of real extraterrestrial surfaces.