The present work covers a new ray tracing scheme of an injection-molded plastic lens linked with finite element analysis for injection molding processes. The traditional ray tracing schemes have been based on the assumption that optical property of the lens is homogeneous throughout the entire volume. However, this assumption is quite unrealistic for injection-molded plastic lenses since material properties vary at every point due to injection molding effects. In order to consider non-homogeneous property of a lens, a modified ray tracing method is proposed in connection with finite element analysis of injection molding. Through the analysis of the injection molding process, the distribution of refractive indices can be obtained. This information is then utilized in the proposed ray tracing scheme based on finite element meshes so as to take into account variation of the refractive indices. The effect of mold temperature is also investigated through finite element analysis, and the relevant optical quality is evaluated through the proposed ray tracing simulation.
